No Hero
by SnowSetAfire
Summary: Spurred by a rumor of a Harmonian prisoner who was also born with a rune, Luc travels back to his homeland to investigate. Will he be able to convince Sarah to escape with him before his true identity is discovered? I like writing, but I like writing better even more. Concrit is welcome!
1. Chapter 1

I arrived in Crystal Valley with nothing more than a glowing transcript from New Leaf Academy given to me by Emilia, forged Harmonian service papers from Tesla and Kimberly, a well-rehearsed story fusing fact and fiction, and the clothes on my back. As I counted out the coins to pay the man who was generous enough to give me the ride in the back of his wagon, I felt degraded. I could have used my teleportation magic and saved all this time and debasement. But I didn't know what strength I would need ahead, and I didn't know how much further past my breaking point that magic would bring me. I hadn't even dared use more than my most basic command of the True Wind Rune during the journey, and then only when no one else was able to afford a decent defense against monsters on the road, and my rod was no use either.

Though I had been in Crystal Valley before, it was only in fleeting moments. Enough to torment that brother of mine, Sasarai, and even that was mostly in the area of Crystal Palace. In the city, I felt like everyone's eyes were on me. There goes some low-born trash. There goes a weakling. There goes a fraud. I kept my head down, not looking at anyone as I walked the shining white main boulevard from the gates and straight to the Crystal Palace. I clutched my papers tight to my chest. I couldn't lose those lies.

"State your purpose." One of the guards demanded as I approached the grand front doors of Crystal Palace. They reached thirty feet into the air, and were broader still, if one chose to open them fully. The clearer entrance was the normal man-sized door cut into the corner, in front of which the guard and his compatriot stood.

"I have an interview." I mumbled. I would have given anything to have Flik chaperone me like he had through the farce of New Leaf Academy. I grit my teeth. This was my mission, and no one else's. "Guard position, high importance prisoners."

I waved the job notice in front of the guard's face, and he snatched it for a cursory glance. He scoured the papers like I was the fraudulent scum I truly was. The posting was for Temple Guard. I certainly did not look the role. Even if I could have put some muscle on my frame, there was no hiding that I had brown hair and green eyes like a Harmonian second-class citizen, not the purebred blond and blue. I hoped that my cover story would hold water for long enough.

"Enter." The guard thrust my papers back at me, half dropping them before I had a chance to take hold. He took out a large, silvery key and unlocked the small man-door set into the gate. The other guard sneered as I stepped in. This was not my place, his look told me. I stuck my tongue out at him slyly as I strode through. This was my place more than he would ever know, and less than I could ever want.

Once inside, it was clear that not even second-class citizens were fit to be servants, or at least to be seen. I quickly found a young female servant to guide me to my destination, a forsaken corner of Crystal Palace that was as much lamps and narrow corridors as the front face of the Palace was openness and sunlight. She was gracious enough. I couldn't detect derision as she described the meaningful pieces of art and architecture, nor as she made small talk. She was probably too far rehearsed.

"Mr. Ross, this is the new candidate." she introduced me when we came to the prison offices.

I was surprised. I had expected yet another well-made first-class citizen, but what I got was a man of second-class bearing, more grizzled than he should have been for active duty. His salt and pepper hair curled tightly against a squarish scalp, and he looked at me suspiciously through narrowed brown eyes.

"Pleased to meet you." I bowed slightly. I hoped the sweat on my palms would not make my papers too damp.

"You don't look like Temple Guard material." Ross said.

"You neither."

"My class wasn't part of my job requirement. Yours is. Bastard or something?"

"I'm no less a first-class citizen than the High Priest himself." I countered boldly. This was true, but also deceptive. The blood of the High Priest ran through my veins. But the founder of Harmonia could not himself have been Harmonian.

"Really." Ross seemed to internally note to himself, _Bastard it is_. Ross didn't press the issue further, whether or not he was satisfied with my answer. "References?" he asked.

I handed over my papers from Emilia. I knew what they contained. Stellar marks across all aspects of magic, especially for use of wind runes. Terminally embarrassing scores on physical aptitudes, and a personal comment that I "worked best alone". I let myself go through a full battery of tests to let her feel confident in an assessment for a student who was enrolled for no more than a few days. Some things were best when they were real, and her reputation as headmistress of New Leaf Academy was on the line if my skills were fraudulent.

"It says you have military experience."

"The Gate Rune Wars. I also fought with Sasarai in the Dunan Unification War." I replied. Again, a truth as long as one didn't pry too far into the difference between "fought with" and "fought for". "I led magicians' units."

"Then why here? You could go much further." Ross said. His challenge seemed rooted in disappointment, the way he let my papers fall limp in his knotted hands as he looked up at me from his desk. His voice was almost gentle, though still cold and formal.

I looked around. The servant who led me here had left. "After seeing what the wind conjured up by the Dunan Army could do, I didn't want to stay longer on the battlefield." I said softly, "The True Runes are terrible things, and my place far from the front lines. I heard that someone with good magic skills is needed for a special prisoner. I would be of better use here."

Half-truth. The wind conjured was mine. If that strain didn't break me like it had, I would have gladly done more to help Riou in the war. I would rather die helping him or Tir than wither away in Master Leknaat's tower, grateful as I was for her care. Fortunately or not, I didn't die.

"That is true. Have you done any guard work before?"

"Yes." I guarded the Tablet of Stars. I watched a hundred and seven people make friends and adventures and find their names engraved upon the Tablet. Twice. Both times, I knew I would need to return to the isolated comfort of Leknaat's island. "Mostly military intelligence. Solo work."

"Any family who could be flagged as belonging to either People's or Temple Factions?"

"No."

"Anyone in your family who is employed by Holy Harmonia?"

I hesitated. I had rehearsed a firm 'No', but had sudden doubts if it was a realistic answer. Sheepishly, I said, "A brother. We haven't been on speaking terms for many years."

Ross seemed satisfied.

"You will not be allowed to communicate with the prisoner but must make regular welfare checks. There's a window in the door for that. Only the rune scholars are permitted access, between the hours of dawn and dusk. You will be required to stop any magic that breaks through the barriers set up around the cell and inform the scholars for their immediate repair. You are not permitted to reveal any aspect of the prisoner's identity, even to other guards. Is this acceptable?"

"Yes."

This was an actual lie. Anyone else, I could stand by and let the tides of fate flow around me like I had guarding the Tablet of Stars. But for someone born with a rune, like I was, I would not stand by in silence.

"The prisoner sent two rune scholars to the hospital last week. One will lose his hand to frostbite. If the barriers fall, will you risk that?"

I shook my head, saying, "I don't know those scholars, but I doubt they have half my skill. I can control him."

Frostbite. What rune could it be- The True Water Rune? Or something connected to the World of Emptiness?

Ross folded his arms in front of him. "You'll need to prove that. They were born with a rune, and it's not a common one either."

"How?"

"What runes do you have to protect yourself?"

"A wind rune." The True Wind Rune. I knew it better than the back of my own hand, the hand that it presented itself on, though the Rune itself was as much a part of the whole of my body as my soul. Perhaps more.

"Show me."

"I don't want to destroy your office, sir."

"The wastebasket then. Only the wastebasket."

Ross stood and picked up a wicker basket from underneath this desk, placing it in front of me before standing behind it. I grinned. He was challenging me, and either had total confidence or utter disbelief in my abilities. No one had ever cared enough to test me like this.

I met Ross's eyes and nodded that I was ready. I coaxed my rune gently. This was a wastebasket, not a dragon. None of the crumpled papers inside would need much power to shred, but finesse with a rune was. But if this was the challenge, I would turn them to fine dust. Extending my hand, I called on the air in the room to tear the basket to pieces. Moving so fast that it was like a tornado of knives, I dashed the wicker into pieces as fine as sawdust that rose in a column in front of Ross, narrowing to a fine spindle of debris before falling to the ground in a neat pile. Though his greying hair was ruffled by my magic, not a single piece of his destroyed wastebasket touched him. I smiled broader. That was easy, even though I had scarcely needed to apply myself so cleverly before. A sweep of my arm and I bade a breeze of my own creation to carry all the offending debris towards the fireplace, where it was consumed by the flames in a golden shimmer. Now it only needed to impress enough to win Ross over.

"You have a job, Eurus." Ross extended his hand. "You will start tonight."

"Thank you, Mr. Ross." I bowed, hoping so hard I didn't seem to startled by the use of my false name I realized too late that I returned the wrong gesture.

"Let's get you a uniform. No promises it fits. Height requirement is a little higher than general military, but I've gone through so many who can't handle this prisoner I'm willing to let it slide."

"Why the high turnover?" I asked.

"Many reasons. A few were less independent than they presented themselves, others found a way to move up and out of prison duty. Some were injured, others said they couldn't stand to be around the prisoner."

"Why not?"

"They found his appearance disturbing. I can't say anything more. I've never seen the prisoner, and as I've said, it is strictly against the Bishops' wishes that anyone divulge any identifying information about the prisoner."

Ross took me to pick up a uniform and as expected there was nothing that would fit properly. I told myself that it didn't matter- I would not be here long anyway, and who would care to see me? Even if the clothes did fit, they would be no less loathsome to me. Just holding the bundle filled me with disgust for everything the blue and white fabric stood for.

"And next, I'll show you to your dormitory. You'll be sharing a room with others on your shift in this cell block, including myself. You'll get a choice of bunk- Matt's covering for Baas on first this next week. Hope he shapes up remembering where he used to be."

"What happened?"

"Demotion. Can't keep his fool mouth shut and ticked off his supervisor. Most of his coworkers too. Shame, he's talented enough to do very well if he didn't have such a bad personality."

Ross's comment stung, even though it wasn't directed at me. It brought back a memory that grated me. Somehow, during the last war, I was roped into judging a cooking competition. Fu Tan Chen had begun introducing each of us aloud, and my heart sank. I didn't want the attention. I never forgot how he introduced me when it came my turn.

" _He's the powerful sorcerer with a good face, but a bad personality! It's Leknaat's pupil, Luc!"_

I had been left speechless. He wasn't even wrong, except maybe that I had 'a good face'. Nothing below that surface was worth anything. I was still smoldering with anger and self-reproach when he had even less flattering words about Sierra. She had the presence of mind to stand up for herself as I grew angry on her behalf. She had my interest when I first heard she was searching for, and then regained her own True Rune, the Blue Moon Rune, though I never told her about my own. From time to time, I even wondered if she suspected when I had become worried after she mentioned in passing a Harmonian man she met who was looking for the True Runes in the area. She was certainly less reticent with me than others when I asked her history with the Rune once she regained it. Her hundreds of years being cursed by the hunger of her Rune, all alone, made my own past seem light by comparison. But there was an end to her loneliness. I did not know when I would know anything except Leknaat and our island, at least for longer than a war. I was jealous as well that she was so much more at peace with bearing a True Rune, and with not being human- though she had far much more choice than I did. I regretted that I didn't have the courage or time to know Sierra better. But what could she have wanted to do with me?

I snapped out of my reverie just as we got to the dormitory. It was a simple, windowless space, not surprising as we were somewhere underground beneath the Crystal Palace. The walls were whitewashed and the only furniture was two bunk beds, four footlockers, and a wooden table with four stools. The bedding was Harmonian blue, and the back wall was hung with the flag of Holy Harmonia. On the bottom bunk of one bed, a young blond man a few years older than me lay on his stomach reading a book as he idly bent and unbent a piece of wire. He looked up as Ross and I entered.

"You got a new guy already D-Ross? Welcome to the Slag Squad, call me Spiess." he said and waved.

"Eurus." I said, "And… 'Slag Squad'?"

"Yeah. My idea- family is big in the metals business, and we got three types of slag here- spiess, matte, and dross. Harmonia wants us just as much as any waste, but we're a fact of life."

"And I fit right in." I said sarcastically

"You can be an honorary member. What's your family name? Maybe I can make something of it."

"I don't have a family name."

"Ah, are you from one of the smaller provinces? Anyway, 'Eurus'? That's the east wind. Unlucky enough to fit in great here."

Spiess didn't know the half of it. I looked up at Ross, who seemed slightly embarrassed, but took it in stride.

"Do I still call you Mr. Ross then?"

"My first name is fine. Danilo. Or Dani, I answer to anything. I've gotten used to Dross."

I moved over to the bottom bunk of the bed opposite Spiess and sat down. I was still in my normal clothes. I dreaded needing to take them off.

"It's an hour until shift starts." Dross said, "I'll be going back to the office. The cell you're going to guard is on the right, at the end of the hall. Spiess can show you if you forget."

I watched him leave as Spiess returned to his book and bending his length of wire back and forth- wrapping it around his finger, forming it into letters, and returning it to a straight length as he perused each page, sometimes flipping back to previous pages. There were more drawings than pictures.

"What are you reading?" I asked. I knew history, and divination, and this looked like a text of neither.

"Metallurgy."

"You're a guard." I pointed out.

"For now. Father wants us to work before we have a chance to help with the companies. I don't have much of a chance compared to my brothers, but I can dream. Least of his sons and greatest pain in his side, Father always said, ha ha."

"I know the feeling."

"Really now? You can't be, looking like that but getting here."

"You'd be surprised."

Spiess returned to his book. I changed into my new guard's uniform. I faced the wall as I removed my shirt. There was nothing but fat. Not necessarily shameful in a magician, but this was my thin body, and both Spiess and Dross were built for wars they may never face. The most exercise I had was in taking care of the tower and meals for both Master Leknaat and I. I changed quickly. In the end, I was left with a scratchy uniform with a firmly starched collar that grated against my neck, sleeves that were too far past my knuckles and pants that rumpled around my ankles.

"Who is your prisoner?" I asked, for want of conversation.

"Some noble. Nice guy, at least to talk to. He says he feels safer here, where the Howling Voice Guild can't reach him. But he's more than happy to trade what he knows of other families in exchange for news and tobacco." Spiess said. He twisted up his piece of wire again, and it snapped. He continued bending one remaining half of the wire. "You'll have to tell me about your prisoner when you meet him."

"I'm not supposed to." I said. I was still creating in my mind what our first meeting would be. Would he look like me? With a True Rune, and a face like a Bishop? Older or younger, or was I actually a triplet? I could imagine Temple Guard fleeing when they found out their prisoner was a doppelganger for one of the Bishops.

"Ha! You're too dedicated." Spiess smiled over his book, "Let me know when the disillusion sets in."

I didn't respond to that. Instead, I put my clothes in the footlocker at the foot of the bunk bed and took a seat at the table. I watched the candle at the center of it burn down, following the passing minutes with the melting of the wax. I didn't have anything to say and dreaded the start of my shift as much as I looked forward to it. Eventually Spiess rose, sliding his wire between the pages of his book in lieu of a paper bookmark.

"It's time. You remember where to go, Eurus?"

"On the right, at the end."

"Get an update from first shift. They're not the best at pass-downs."

I internalized his order but didn't respond. I walked towards the end of the hall, trying to keep in mind that my bearing had every effect of how I was perceived. I had to be a soldier and a guard, not a fraud of a magician.

"Hey, you my relief?" The guard I was to replace asked. This must be Matt.

"I am." I said, "Anything to let me know?"

"Eh. Prisoner does his thing, I don't need to do anything with the rune scholars being around all shift."

"I heard he sent some to the hospital." I said

"I didn't see anything. Felt the frost though. He tends to get frustrated at night; thank the gods I get some other prisoner once Baas is back."

"Hardly welcoming of him." I commented.

Matt raised an eyebrow. "You really think you can deal with him, Mister Second-Class?"

I bristled. "What does that mean? If breeding is supposed to be merit, I'd rather throw my lot in with the second- and third- class citizens. Who else has evaded Harmonia for centuries with a True Rune?"

Master Leknaat was foremost in my mind. For over three hundred years, she guarded her half of the Gate Rune. Her clan was destroyed by Harmonia, and only she and her sister Windy remained. She was nothing like what Holy Harmonia valued, except for having half of the Gate Rune. Her hometown rebelled. She herself was blinded when Harmonia destroyed her village. In a land where fairness was a marker of value, her hair was black as night. Nor would Tir and Riou be considered worthy of being Harmonian heroes, or even poor Ted, regardless of whose side they fought on.

Matt looked annoyed. "Later, sunshine."

"Hope you feel more capable once you're back to your demotion." I shot back. It was a shot in the dark. I had made a guess that guarding this particular prisoner was more difficult than any else. It must have worked. Matt turned red as he passed by me.

"Keep talking. I'll see if you're not frozen in the morning."

He was right. Frost coated corners of the door to the cell, and left icicles around the window slot in the door.

Matt's tone was so dismissive, I could see at once why no one would want to work with him. Though at the same time, I was an other. He would have needed to be completely foolish to treat real first-class citizens or his superiors with the same tone. He disappeared in a huff. I waited until I could no longer hear his footsteps, and then a while more to make sure that no one else was likely to come by. I leaned against wall, watching frosty air fall along the door jamb and pool along the floor. My feet began to chill in my boots. And this was on the other side of a magic barrier, though by my estimation it was a weak one patched over many times by mages of different styles and strengths. I could make something far stronger with my training from Master Leknaat.

When I felt safe, I turned the knob on the prison door. I didn't want to bother looking through the window first, I felt confident in my ability to take on this prisoner myself, if needed. I was also far too curious. What face would I see on the other side? Would it be like my own, and would it smile when I gave an offer of freedom? I shivered with my own memories.

With the door even slightly ajar, I could begin to hear the sound of crying. The room was coated in ice but was nothing like I expected. It was well-appointed, more like a room for a noble Harmonian than for a prisoner despite the lack of windows. On one side there was a bookcase with heavy locks holding the doors shut. Across from me, a couch and a low table. Opposite the bookcase, a bed with the crying person, huddled under the blankets. Only the immediate area around the prisoner was free of ice.

I closed the door behind me. With my first step towards the prisoner, I felt something crunch under my boot. I stepped back and looked at what I had destroyed underfoot. It was half a toy horse. The other half had its legs snapped off and thrown across the white stone floor. The wreckage of a miniature wagon lay wrapped around one of the table legs. I swallowed hard. This was a child. Harmonia had done it once more.

More gingerly, I stepped around the carnage of the horse and scattered puzzle pieces. The child didn't stop crying. I warded away the ice around me with a warm breeze and sat at the foot of the bed.

"Stop crying." I commanded, before realizing it would get me nowhere. More gently, I asked, "What's your name?" I had expected someone my own age. I wished Leknaat was here. Or Riou or Nanami, they were far better with kids than I was. Probably even a bear like Viktor could do better than I could.

"Go away!" was the response I got.

"Not tonight. What's your name?"

The sobs grew fainter as the child twisted around underneath his heavy blue blanket, and then I saw a mess of pale yellow hair emerge from behind the covers, followed by a puffy red face that drew even more contrast between pale blue eyes and the rune throbbing with magical light on the child's forehead. I squinted to see through the light. It was a Flowing rune, powerful water magic, but no True Rune. One more question answered.

"Sarah."

I could feel tears build up in my eyes. My expectations were dashed, and I was left even more angry at Harmonia. I had somehow pictured a young man like me, kept secret by the Harmonian priests for their own ends. This was a little girl, and she didn't even have a True Rune on her. I couldn't fathom the reason the state would want to keep someone like her locked up like this, and under such secrecy.

"Are you hurt?" I asked, "I can-"

"Go away." Sarah repeated.

She scowled, promptly turning away from me and throwing her legs over the side of the bed to get out of it. Sarah murmured something to herself, and the puffiness and color of tears drained to paleness. She knew her rune well. I could have cast a healing wind over her, but she was more than capable to help herself. Both the ice and the healing were basic magic, but I noted the ease with which she conjured them. Sarah walked over to the puzzle pieces and gathered them in a heap before studying each in turn, trying more by chance than by recognition to assemble the picture.

"If you start with the edges..." I suggested from where I sat.

Sarah turned back at me and frowned. I could feel her magic attack me, and when I opened my mouth to speak I found I was robbed of my voice. Clever of her, to silence me with the power of a Silent Lake spell. Now I was very impressed. I watched her play with her puzzle more, now sorting out the edge pieces first and putting them in place.

I left part way through, unable to speak, and with none of Sarah's attention on me. I needed to keep up my semblance of being a guard, in any case. Hours passed, and I checked through the window as I was instructed. In one view, she grew close to finishing the puzzle, leaving only a blue sky to fill in. In the next viewing, the whole puzzle was scattered again, and Sarah was back in bed. She slept for a while, then I heard her scream and cry again. I rushed in.

"Are you alright?" I asked. It was a nightmare. I knew nightmares well. "Can I help you?"

Again Sarah didn't reply, though the sounds of her crying became punctuated more and more by silences and hiccups. She was crying even harder than before. Over and over I wracked my brain, trying to think of how to fill the uncomfortable gap between us. I tried to think of what I would have wanted thirteen years ago when I was awaiting death in a cell so much smaller and rougher than this one. That brought little fruit. I had wanted only oblivion then. Then, what had Riou done for Pilika? Or Nanami? I had caught them placating the girl with a hug once, but Sarah did not seem open to that. Sweets were not an option either, at least for the moment.  
"Did you have a nightmare?" I asked.

Sarah nodded. "I don't wanna sleep now."

"I could tell you a story." I announced before admitting, "Though I don't know many."  
Amazingly, I heard Sarah choke out a "Yeah."  
I was caught off guard, expecting a refusal or at least another silence that would give me time to think. I cycled through the stories of people I knew, not knowing any fairy tales well. Master Leknaat never told me any in my childhood, and before that… before that, I never heard much of anything.  
"Well," I began. I focused my sight on the bookcases opposite us. Were there even storybooks there? Probably not, if they were locked so fast. My throat began to dry up. I knew I would make a mistake somehow. Nevertheless, I continued. "Not long ago, there was a little boy. He was a dragon knight, and not much older than you."  
I continued relentlessly, forgetting to check on if Sarah was awake or even listening. I don't think I had said so much at one time in ages, but when I was done I had related the entire story, from the boy joining the Liberation Army to the loss of his dragon Black and finding Bright and at last his role in the final battle against the True Beast Rune. I left out the grimmer truths of the face of war.  
"What was the boy's name?" Sarah asked. I hadn't given enough credit to my skills to think she was still listening, or would even calm down as much as she had. But by the look of the candles in the room, I had run long in the tale.  
"Huh? Oh, I forgot to say." I kicked myself mentally for forgetting to state something so basic. "Futch. His name was Futch. Maybe…" I thought about how I had believed I would never see the little brat again after the Gate Rune War. A little brat who had done more than I in fewer years. "Maybe you can meet him someday." I trailed off.  
"Liar." Sarah's accusation was cold. The room became cooler again as well, until frost once again began forming on the walls. I looked toward Sarah. She was sitting now, her blanket clutched close around her. She struggled to regain her composure. Tears were streaming down her face once more. My empathy broke. So, she wanted to be testy? Two could play at that game. Against my better judgement, I let my own magic flow through my Wind Rune. I beat back the frost and whipped Sarah's broken toys around the room in a small cyclone.

"Drop your spells." I commanded. I was wise enough not to break the wards, and clear-headed enough to not let any harm come to Sarah. I let my spell relax as soon as I saw her own call on the rune die down.  
"Do not call me a liar." I looked at her coldly, "If you want to leave your cell, I have every intention and every ability to make that possible."  
"You'll use me like all the other grownups."  
"And what need do I have for that? I came into this world with more power in my little finger than you have now. And the politics of Harmonia are a game for stupid puppets to play." I caught myself at the edge of a precipice and took a deep breath, bringing my emotions back in check. I couldn't be lecturing a little girl and then expecting her to accept my help. "I'm s- I'm willing to help you get out of here."  
I wanted to say, I know how you feel. I'm not so different than you. But I held my tongue. Those were things she didn't need to know. Not now, at least.  
"Let me think."  
Not the words I would have liked to hear, but they were encouraging at least.  
"Then try to sleep. I will be back tomorrow, and you can tell me your answer."

Sarah rolled over, wrapping her quilt tight around her until all I could see were a few threads of cornsilk hair.

"What's your name?" Sarah mumbled, the bedclothes muffling her voice to near inaudibility.

I had been nothing more than a trash creature, I thought. I had gotten angry at a child. I couldn't even bring myself to apologize for it. Why should want she ask my name?

"Luc." I said. "My name is Luc."  
We said nothing more for the rest of the night. I watched attentively as she succumbed once again to sleep and I rose once to my feet only as my shift ended. I had no greetings for my relief when he came to take my shift over for me and collapsed into my bed when I returned to the dormitory.


	2. Chapter 2

"… _if it fails to thrive, we will be back where we started. Just like what happened then with True Fire. We can't lose any more than we already have."  
The words in my dream were a memory, but more a memory of the Wind Rune than of mine. I was too young at the time to have anything more than the vaguest of recollections without the Rune's help. Almost always, the Rune's help was not wanted.  
I was only a little child and filled with confusion. My keeper had bathed me, brushed my hair, dressed me in new clothes, and placed me in a room of opulence I had never before seen. My skin was raw from a rough bath, and my eyes were large with wonder. Everything around me was new, everything gleamed with the morning light that danced through full-length windows. I was overwhelmed by the newness of it all.  
"Of course. In any case, the little Bishop needs someone his own age as well."  
There were three other people in the room with me- two men, one of whom was my keeper, another child of my age, and one I assumed kept him. I had seen the other child once before, though he regarded me with such interest that I don't think he had recognized my face. We met, if it could have been called that, when I was thrown in one of the darker cells to think about a tantrum I had thrown. He was free to wander the Palace and had somehow found my dark corner of existence. Unfortunately, his guardians were not far behind him, and the boy had been whisked away as soon as he had arrived. But I knew him, or our at least my True Rune recognized his, at once.  
"I'm Sasarai." The little boy held out his hand to me now. I stared, not knowing what I was supposed to do with it, "What's your name?"  
Name? In my mind, I merely labeled him "a Sasarai"- just as some things were a table, too tall for me to reach; others were a window, girded with iron bars; yet others were vases and not to be touched by my clumsy hands.  
"You." I said.  
Sasarai burst out laughing, "That's not a name, silly!"  
I frowned. No one had ever laughed at me before, only regarded me with the minimum of interest. I didn't know the meaning of the sounds that boy made. The adults in the room were too busy in their own discussion to care.  
"You're funny." Sasarai wiped a tear from his eye, "Come on, what's your name? I'm Sasarai," He pointed to himself, and next to me, "and you…?"  
"Yes. That's right." I shook my head, utterly bewildered. I was a "you", he was a "Sasarai." Everything was clear to me.  
"Huh." Sasarai snorted. He looked dejected only for a split second before returning to his cheerful self, "I'm going to be a Bishop when I grow up." He said proudly. I only knew that Bishops were something important. The future was something that I didn't look forward to. "So I'm gonna give you a new name."  
Sasarai clapped his hands onto my shoulders and looked into my eyes. If I had a mirror to look into I would have noticed how much his face was like my own. With an unearned air of authority, he said in his little voice, "As Bishop of Harmonia, I declare your new name is Luc!"  
Luc? I had thought, how could he make me something else? Maybe if I was a Bishop, I could do things like that too.  
"My lord, please." One of the adults admonished. If it were me, I would have heard words filled with utmost disdain. Dogs would have been treated as they had more thought than I did. But for Sasarai, for this little boy who was my own age, and though I did not know it, my twin- for him, they would only speak with sainted patience and kindness. It was something I recognized but didn't care about then. He was different. He was better. I was nothing, but more awestruck than jealous.  
That he would even speak with me…  
"Come on Luc, let's play jacks."_

 _And then the color drained from my dream, and the sound. I looked at a Harmonian flag in the room, its deep blue the only thing that remained in color. The emblem of the Circle Rune erupted out of the surface of the flag, and I was face to face with a giant blue eye, watching my every move. I turned to look for Sasarai, but he had disappeared, along with the two others. The eye was only growing in size as it moved menacingly close. I called on the True Wind Rune to fight it off, but there was no wind in the room to fight with-_

I awoke with a scream.

"High Priest's hat!" Matt cried out. I looked over towards the center table to see him struggling to contain what little he could of his morning tea in his cup. Most had spilled onto the table when I startled him. "Are you going to do that every morning?"

"I hope not. I don't talk in my sleep, do I?" I rubbed sleep from my eyes.

"If you did, Matt would be first to let you know. In detail." Dross advised.

The remnants of my dream clung to my mind, and in waking I felt only bitterness, knowing that only a few moments ago I had been so happy. I had wished to forget it- that once, Sasarai was the closest I would have called to a friend. That aside from the occasional childish fight, the few hours a week I could see him were the best parts of my days. It had all changed so suddenly. The ending of my dream troubled me. I remembered waking up to such fear before, but never had I been able to recall why I felt it. I didn't know whether I wanted to forget or cling to the vision.

I got up and took a seat at the table in the center of the dormitory room. There was a pot of tea and a basket of rye bread alongside cold cuts and cheeses. I took a took a roll and cradled it in my hands. It was still a little warm.

"Shouldn't you be at your post?" I asked Matt.

"Not today. Boss-man on first shift didn't trust me with a 'special visitor'. I don't know what there's not to trust. Don't need to mess with the prisoner at all."

"He probably didn't trust you with the visitor." Dross pointed out, "Someone who can drop in that suddenly for a prisoner like that is high up. I'd be worried for your employment."

"Huh!" Matt scoffed, "I'm better than that now."

"Does leave us all free until evening." Spiess said, "It's market day in the Kanakan District. Anyone else want to go?"

Dross and Matt grunted their approval of the idea. I nodded. I knew Circle Palace well, but the rest of Crystal Valley was mostly a mystery. I was anxious for a breath of fresh air.

"We can wear street clothes, right?" I asked.

Dross shook his head, saying "Uniforms always, unless at home or we get special dispensation. You know that."

"I was hoping that Temple Guard could be a little more relaxed off the battlefield." I muttered.

"It'll be fine. Ladies like a man in uniform." Speiss said.

"You have to fit in it first."

Shortly after finishing breakfast and draining the teapot, we left for the Kanakan District. I felt more secure than yesterday, having at least a Temple Guard uniform and three others around me. But it was unseasonably warm this morning, and I sweated into my wool uniform. Spiess and Dross took the lead, talking amiably. I lagged somewhat behind Matt, who expended no effort on small talk. It was a struggle for me to keep up. The crowds in the street were overwhelming this morning, and I had no idea where this Kanakan District was. It took most of my attention to follow the other guards.

"Have you been there before?" I asked Matt. I hoped he would be familiar in case we lost the others.

"No, foreigners aren't my thing. I stick with Harmonians, sunshine."

"Like Dross?" I probed. I didn't like his attitude and wanted to plumb the depths of his inborn haughtiness.

"Least he was born here not like-! Aw, shit!"

Matt froze. Dross and Spiess had already stopped ahead, blocked by a group of six Temple Guard. The six weren't like us, a motley cowed by the hands fate dealt to us. They were proud, five men and a woman that radiated confidence underneath blue berets. They all had swords sheathed at their sides. None of us did. At least none them was a gunner from the Howling Voice Guild. If anything could scare me half as much as the devastation a True Rune could create, it was the thunder of a gun and the unfeeling precision of its user. These didn't seem like they types to want to associate with gunners, though. The machinations of the Guild were a dirty- if open- secret. Their perverse meritocracy was only grudgingly tolerated as a means to preserve the balance of power in Holy Harmonia.

I stepped up to the front, beside Dross. I wanted to know what was going on, and to get to this Kanakan District sooner rather than later.

"Bringing down the Guard even farther, Dani? Who's that brat?" One of the men blocking our progress in the streets said. His face, framed by curly hair, was strangely cherubic for his age, height, and build. It went without saying that he was blond and blue-eyed like a proper first-class citizen. He was somewhat shorter than his companions but had a charisma in his bearing that made him seem even more present than the tallest, a giant of a man who was easily a head taller than Spiess.

"Why do you care? Still bearing a grudge from our school days?" Dross shrugged.

"I care because you have no business sullying the Temple."

"I had no business kicking your ass in the training yard either, but I did that anyway. Take your pick."

The leader- or at least I assumed he was the leader, because the rest were content to laugh along with the man, or make whispered quips to each other- turned his attention to Spiess instead. That was smart, I thought. Dross's history must have had some weight to it. He certainly had a good barb to his tongue when it came to this stranger.

"I told you before, Spiess, stop shaming your family name and get out of that shithole. You're not going to make your dad any happier hanging around nothings and a nobody."

"We better get going." Dross advised, interrupting Spiess before he could say anything.

I didn't like the way that the mood had turned, and it was far more hostile than the words shared so far. All the same, I nodded in the direction of the Temple Guard in front of us and added, "We shouldn't hang around that nobody and his bunch of nothings."

I couldn't help myself. I had fought too hard to crawl out of the bowels of Harmonia to be called a "nothing". I strode forward, meaning to break apart the group and continue on our way. The leader stayed firm, even stepping forward so that I bumped into him. He towered over me by over half a foot. My expression remained impassive.

"Say that again." He challenged.

I looked back over my shoulder, calling to my coworkers, "Don't worry, 'Nobody's' in the way."

A punch to the gut knocked the wind out of me. I grinned. It hurt to the World of Emptiness and back, but I'd had worse. The important thing was that this fine specimen of his type had thrown the first punch. I staggered back, clutching my stomach.

"You'll want to apologize for that." I rasped. "I know quite a few people who hate to see someone pick on the little guy."

That little guy wasn't necessarily me. But no one I fought alongside in Toran or Dunan would have tolerated this smugness very long. I wouldn't either. To call any of Dross or Matt a 'nothing' or a 'nobody', the two people I felt closest to, was not going to stand. My own status didn't matter.

Dross placed a hand on my shoulder, urging, "Stop this nonsense."

I wasn't going to do that.

"You're the one who needs to apologize, second-class scum!"

"That's better than 'nothing'. Pleased I've risen in your estimation. But I've got nothing to apologize for. You do, for being rude to your fellow Temple Guard."

The guard drew his sword, to the gasps of his companions. They stepped back, hands on their weapons but far less committed to wielding them.

"I am not apologizing to trash like yourself."

"Baas, please!" Spiess begged, "We'll take care of the kid."

"No, we're settling this here. Give the kid a sword, Kyrie."

The female guard with him started to draw hers to give to me, but I waved her away.

"My wind rune will be more than enough."

"Tch. Then let's see you prove it."

It was a dangerous game I was playing, and I had dealt myself a worrisome hand. Rune magic took time to cast, and I was done for if Baas got in the first blow. But I was confident. Though my stomach was distractingly sore from where I was punched, and I had no training in swords, my mind and my mastery of the True Wind Rune would far outfly any swordsmanship he had on a one-on-one fight. His friends seemed to have no intention of joining in. I could sense no more of a help on my side either.

"Take this!" The Temple Guard, Baas, raged. He lunged at me with this sword. I barely sidestepped, watching steel flash a hair's breadth from my nose, before I pushed him further forward and off balance with a gust of wind. He fell over but recovered quickly. I was on my guard, ready for when he rose to his feet. Baas' face was beet-red, and his surcoat and uniform covered in dust.

"You're not done yet?" I teased. "I'd hate to see you more humiliated. Give up now."

He circled around and I followed likewise, waiting for him to make a move or show weakness. I grew tired of holding my Rune at bay. In front of the gathering crowd, I sent a gust of wind to throw Baas' surcoat up and over his face, blinding him. I moved further around the man as he fought to free himself, and let another burst of wind, this one edged hard enough to cut. It shredded the fabric into a web of cobalt blue.

I allowed Baas to pull the remains of his surcoat back down around himself. I didn't want to actually hurt him even if I had antagonized. All the same, if he wasn't truly serious before, he would be now, and I had given him his window to act on it. I'd made this mistake before, but Tir and his friends were guests in need of Master Leknaat's services on her island when I toyed with setting a golem against them with my True Wind Rune. Here, I was the one at a disadvantage. Baas and his friends needed nothing from me, and I had no master like Leknaat in Harmonia.

Baas cleared his throat and resumed a fighting stance, tense like a spring.

"Do you even know who my father is?" he asked.

"No, do you? But I don't see what he has to do with us. We can fight all day and you can keep on losing, or you can give up and leave us be. I don't even care about an apology anymore- you've already shown all Crystal Valley that breeding means nothing. Get out of the way."

I glowered at Baas and his companions. Baas still held his sword out, and the others each had a hand on the hilt of theirs, ready to draw if their friend demanded. I had let all my wind magic fall down by the wayside, but considered conjuring a tornado around myself so they could see I was merely toying to begin with.

I stepped forward to fight but suddenly felt a hand clamp painfully around my upper arm and Dross was dragging me along, pushing past the Temple Guard that insulted him and through the crowd. I looked around frantically, worried that they might follow. But they didn't and Matt and Spiess lagged behind us as two blond heads bobbing above a crowd.

"You're worse than Matt!" Dross hissed, "What the hell were you thinking!?"

My tongue still felt catty, but this wasn't the time anymore. Dross was livid, and he was my boss, for as long as I needed to stay here.

"By the High Priest, what the hell were you thinking?" Dross repeated once we were well out of the crowd. He spun around to grab my other arm. I was certain I would have ten bruises from each finger come evening.

"I don't like that sort of bully." I said.

"Baas'll ruin you. You had so much promise."

"You're hurting me…" I complained, "And you'd just deal with him?"

"It's not done that way."

"It is where I come from. I make my choices."

"Eurus…"

I shook my head and avoided Dross's eyes when I suggested, "Fire me if you need to save face."

"No, not that either."

In truth, I was taken aback. No one had ever called me out like that before. No one ever treated me like I had my own role in my own future. Even Leknaat, my master and the closest I had to a mother, never voiced any concern beyond whether I obeyed or did not. If I went against her, it was merely treated as my own choice, devoid of worry for the fallout. More than annoyed, I was glad. I had done nothing for Dross except be a pain in his side. Still he cared, and deeply. I hoped I would see him again after I had rescued Sarah. I doubted it, but at least I had this moment.

Dross let go of me. I could feel the blood return to my fingers while Matt and Spiess caught up.

"By the High Priest, what the hell was that?" Spiess asked, "What the hell was that?"

"Nothing, just-"

"That was amazing!" Matt said.

I shook my head again. It was only me being an ass.

"By the High Priest, I thought I'd see a True Rune before I'd see Baas put in his place."

"You don't want to see a True Rune." I told Matt.

"No? They're so amazing- can you imagine, having the power of a god, being immortal?" Spiess said.

By now we were on our way to the Kanakan District. I looked back and didn't see the other Temple Guard.

"It's a curse." I said, but those three words were too much.

"How would you know?"

"I know people. I've seen the True Runes. The True Wind Rune massacred Bishop Sasarai's troops during the war in Highland. There's a True Rune called 'Soul Eater,'- it murdered those closest to the hero of the Gate Rune Wars. Would you want to live an eternity with those memories?"

"You're serious…" Spiess balked.

"A True Rune- that was what killed my brother." Matt said, suddenly more reproachful at the possibility of seeing a one. "Did you know him? His name was Ben. Ben Aviles. He fought at Highland."

I shook my head, "Sorry, it was a large battlefield."

And I was on the other side. So now I stood next to the brother of one of the many that I destroyed with the power of my Rune. Should I tell him, at least before I leave? There was no doubt in my mind that Riou would have lost that battle if I had not intervened, nor that my motives for joining that fight and revealing my truths were purely selfish. I was curious that the role of my Rune was downplayed to the point of non-existence. Of course the survivors knew what they had seen- perhaps the triple embarrassment of being so soundly thwarted, by a True Rune they did not possess, wielded by a defector, and one they would have rather kept hidden, was too much for Harmonia's propaganda machine to spin.

"Who were those guys anyway?" I asked as our surroundings changed from the clean facades of first-class citizen apartments to those of the nouveau riche second-class, and then towards the houses of the merely aspirational.

"Baas? We were classmates at Soldelt. He's been my bully for over twenty years now. My father always told me that if you get punched, punch back- unfortunately Baas doesn't learn. The rest? His proteges. No one really of note except by their family names."

"Not even interesting family names on either faction." Spiess added, "If they were Latkje's or Sufina's, I could at least feel some actual rivalry. Loved watching you put him in his place. Ah, I know this restaurant, should we stop for lunch?"

It was a small place on a corner, hedged with barrels of wine on the outside and a falcon crested in red against the white facade. Neither of those characteristics alone would be worth a visit, but the smells that wafted from within told why Spiess was so keen on visiting the Kanakan District. They were enough to make a Harmonian chef weep and hold the owner for ransom.

"You're here early! Wanted to try our lunch menu for a change?" the hostess exclaimed as soon as we came in view. Her eyes were directly on me.

This was difficult. I could guess who she expected in my stead. Would it be better to play along or play innocent? And of these options- which was more costly? I played a fool, risking everything.

"Will my credit be good this time?" I ruffled through my pockets for money I knew wasn't there.

"Your lordship, your credit is always good here. Take a seat. Wine for you again?" she said.

I nodded. "That would be fine. Anything else you would like to try?" I asked my companions, "It's on me."

Of everyone, Dross looked at me most suspiciously. He looked over the menu and chose the least expensive. I chose the most dear, though I had little interest in the flavor what was listed as "Kanakan bluefin tuna a l'amande with caviar". With that allowance, Spiess and Matt seemed confident to order what they really wanted over what they felt accessible.

"Have you been here often, Spiess?" I asked as glasses of water were delivered to our table.

"Clearly not often enough. She knows you, Eurus?"

"She thinks she does. Will you spoil it?" Seeing the doubt on their faces I added, "We've known each other since childhood. This sort of thing has become a bit of a tradition between us."

"Who is 'he'?" Dross asked.

"I can't tell you. It would be dangerous if there was any suspicion that this Bishop could be so readily replaced by a false one. Names would make it too easy to tie us together- and I prefer the anonymity I have with us never being in the same place and same time as it is. Speaking of which, do any of the other people we guard have such stringent requirements for secrecy?"

Spiess shook his head, "No, my guy's even allowed to send letters home. Harder for him to get replies because of the worry that the paper could be poisoned by some gunner, but we make do."

"Why would they do that?"

Spiess shrugged, "There's a lot of people with a lot of different motives. He's got a good network but ended up knowing too much about too many people. He's voluntarily here, actually. For his safety."

"And your regular, Matt?"

"Same as yours."

"Dross?"

"He's not going to be for much longer, I hope. Execution is scheduled for next week."

"What for?"

"Former prince of a third-class province. He's accepted his fate."

"Oh."

I picked at my food once it arrived. The sole flaked to pieces underneath my fork, leaving me to wonder if my prank would fall apart as easily, if it would have been worth risking my entire goal for the sake of using Sararai's credit and our resemblance for a for lunch. I wondered if Sasarai ate this well for every meal, and my appetite died completely. I had fallen a long way from when I dared to use my True Wind Rune to defeat his entire regiment in battle. I wasn't done paying him back yet. Sasarai's debt had grown. He hadn't even remembered my name in Highland, and we had once lived as brothers.

No. We were brothers, both in blood and spirit. He was my only friend, until that day when he sided with our "father" and left me to die. Twelve years was not enough time to heal that wound. We had an eternity, and I didn't think it would be enough time unless I could see Sasarai's face crying for forgiveness in the face of betrayal like I had done.

I guided a small amount of sole with its slivered almond garnish and thick sauce on my fork and into my mouth. It was far too rich, but I couldn't spit it out and the texture and flavor, though sweet at first, grew worse as I worked up the nerve to swallow. Twelve years ago. We were seven. And still, as much as I hated no one else than Sasarai, not even the High Priest who created us, I couldn't help but feel for him a little. He once was my brother, and one day he might feel the same betrayal that I had. Would he, coddled as he was, be able to withstand it?

I pushed my plate aside. Both Speiss and Matt were more than willing to help me tear the fish down to the bone.

"Will you be needing dessert again?" The waitress asked when we had finished our meal.

"No, thank you. I've had more than my fill for lunch." I shook my head. "Well, we will be leaving- unfortunately there is less time than I'd like in the afternoon than in the evening."

I smiled as I thought Sasarai might smile. Spoiled, nonchalant, utterly ungrateful for how good he had it in life. The waitress bought it. I hurried out, letting that smile fall as soon as my back was to the waitress. I felt disgusting for even putting myself in his mindset.

"You have a lot of explaining to do, Eurus." Matt clapped me on the back, "What other secrets do you have?"

"I don't owe you an explanation. I gave you enough of one already."

"Ever going to stop being testy? Never mind. Spiess, you're looking at swords in the market again, right?"

"Yeah. Kanaka knows its steel."

"Ugh, of course."

I hung close to Spiess as he made an efficient line towards the merchant he sought, a man whose cart was lined with blades of all sorts, from axeheads and letter openers to weapons of a variety that would suit any school of martial art. Each was unique. Though I knew little of bladed weapons, the ones closest to the merchant seemed worth a fortune even unadorned. Spiess studied each in turn, questioning the merchant in a language I knew to be technically Harmonian but with the words used in ways and strung together in a style that I did not understand.

"What's it with you and wire? Bending it, I mean." I asked after Spiess selected a curved blade and held it out to observe how well it balanced in his grip.

"You know if you have a paper clip, and you bend it back and forth? You stress it one way then the other. Eventually it snaps. But it gets stronger until it does. Stronger, but more brittle. It's like life, huh? You're soft unless you find something that stresses you, and then you get stronger. But everyone's a different 'mettle'. Some fail fast, some not in their lifetime. Maybe some will never fail at all in a thousand years no matter what life throws at them."

I looked at Spiess curiously. I didn't think he would have a philosophical bent. I wondered what I might be out of the dozens of blades in front of us. Something cheap, I thought. I was born flawed. How had my life strengthened me, yet brought me closer to failure? Or was my material such that whatever the world and my Rune would bring, I would endure?

"So say someone's a lump of cheap iron, they're just useless? They'll never make a good sword."

Spiess turned to me, his blue eyes glittering with excitement. I had stepped into a trap. "Well, why would everyone need to be a sword? You can't use the same stuff for a blade as you would for a trumpet; it'd sound bad. And there's such thing as too strong for swords too- it might hold the sharpest edge, but chip easily. You have to study yourself to know what you're made of."

"Still, what if you're made of something worthless?"

"Nothing's worthless." Spiess retorted hotly. I had touched a nerve. "Even things made to fail. My father says he's seen old Sindar machines where they've deliberately put in parts that will break early, to protect the whole device. Too much force and a bolt fails. Too much power and a fuse breaks. And so what if that's what you're there for? You've fulfilled your role. It's not fair, but it's what it is."

I thought on that for a while as I watched Spiess replace once sword and check the balance of another, and then examine the patterned coloring of a glaive's sharp end. He might have picked a better metaphor to craft his life around.

"You mean like fate? If it's a machine, why not rebuild it?" I stretched for the right words to continue my thoughts, "Make that role not needed and reforge yourself for a new one."

"'Swords to ploughshares', huh? You're not wrong, but I think that's not quite right either. I'm done here. D'you want anything, Eurus?"

I thought hard. I wanted nothing for myself, but Sarah might want something.

"I have no money."

"I'll spot you. Payday's next week."

"Are there any good Kanakan sweets?" I asked.

"Not wine? You're more a kid than you look. Yeah, they've got some nice things if you don't mind it being obscenely sweet by Harmonian taste."

"I'll try it."

We went to cart halfway across the market square that was filled with pillowy mounds of candies. Gummy lozenges sparkled in the sun like pearls of colored glass, sugared fish-shapes basked like miniature red snapper and albacore. There were even piles of sugary false eggs, both cracked and whole, and remarkably lifelike fruits and miniature animals made of almond paste. I looked over the bounty, uncomfortable with the fact that I would have to choose just a little of what was available because even one piece of everything would cost a fortune. I wished I had ever dared Lotte if there was something she liked from her childhood in Kanaka, knowing also that if I did, she might have been more of a fellow magician and I would still have had to abandon her for Leknaat's sake. It was better I didn't, knowing how much I missed even our slight conversations.

"Give me those." I pointed towards a pile of marshmallows, twisted cords of pale pink and yellow. "A half-scoop."

Spiess paid for me. I held my paper bag close like it was filled with gold as we made our way back across the market to meet back up with Matt and Dross. I looked out for Baas and his gang almost as much. If he cared to follow up on our fight, I would rather do it without Dross to hold me back.

"So, that all for you or do you have a girlfriend?" Spiess asked.

"Only me."

"Shame. You single?"

"What does that matter?"

"It'd be a pity, handsome guy like you. You love anyone, even if you never said it?"

Did I? Even friendship was a strong word for anyone I knew. I liked Viki in a distant way, for her looks and an unexpressed camaraderie that we both had to disappear at the end of each war, though in different ways. I had always been too shy to speak before it was too late.

Even for Master Leknaat, I felt devotion and gratitude, but "love" was a stretch. If it wasn't for her, I would have never seen my eighth birthday. She meant well. She had to have meant well. She was my master. If she didn't love me, then there was no one. She gave me my humanity and she taught me all I knew, and yet… was it loving to keep me locked away in her tower where the only visitors were not for me, but for her astrological charts? Was it loving that the only times I had seen the world outside were to guard a god-forsaken magic rock during two wars? I could read the pain of loss and the joy of belonging on others' faces, but I had no context to understand and no courage nor time to learn.

With all I knew of love, I did not want to love anyone.

"No." I said flatly.

"Can I have some marshmallow?"

"Can I refuse?" I asked, passing him the brown paper bag. I cringed, watching Spiess remove a handful of the candy with grease-blackened hands.

"You could've."

Spiess was stuffing a last marshmallow into his mouth when Dross caught sight of us. Spiess finally gave me my purchase back, and I could feel my cheeks grow hot with embarrassment. Dross motioned for us to hurry over. We still had to wait for Matt to saunter up from the market with the sun beginning to set behind him. My shift was about to begin. I crunched the rolled brown paper top of the bag in my fist. I would see Sarah soon.


	3. Chapter 3

Dread filled me as I walked down the lonely hallway to Sarah's prison. The paper bag of marshmallows I had purchased was hidden up my sleeve. I feared that it would fall and the first shift guard would confiscate some or all of it. Or worse, upon opening it in front of Sarah, I would find out that the candy had become a squished and shapeless mass, or that she abhorred whatever I had brought her.

"What happened this shift?" I asked the stranger who had taken over Matt's post. He was interchangeable with any other first-class Harmonian man in appearance. Tall, blond, blue-eyed. Reasonably good-looking in the way that soft, rich living tended to afford when one never needed to labor hard for the next meager meal. The guard's eyelids drooped with fatigue, bored stiff with the drudgery of watching by a door and having nothing to do and no one to talk to. His breath clouded in front of him.

"It was rough. The little witch's been acting up ever since the Bishop left. I heard her call him by another name and he turned white as a sheet, like he'd seen a ghost. 'Rook' or something."

My heart raced and I froze up. I could have guessed I would have had more to worry about than how to hide a bag of marshmallows up my sleeve.

"Actually, you look like…" he skewed his face as his slow mind puzzled out an uncomfortable realization.

"You think I look like this 'Luc'? Don't be stupid." I scowled. I'm not 'Luc', here, I told myself. I'm a liar. I'm a fraud. I'm a snake in the grass. I'm a monster. I'm Eurus—or am I? "Is this poor of a disguise enough that you don't recognize Bishop Sasarai for the second time in a day?"

I'd caught lightning in a bottle once today. I could do it again. I had to do it again. I seized on the poor idiot's words and folded my arms across my chest and mused aloud, "I am extremely disappointed. Your supervisor will be ashamed, if he still is your supervisor tomorrow."

He was more than awake now. The color drained from his face and he shivered, but not with cold. I relished watching him squirm. He actually bought it.

"How long have you been working here that you can't remember the basic rules of your post? My visit was secret." I said harshly, "Was secret. And now you have told me that a Bishop had visited. You have told me that on the other side of this door is a witch. 'A little witch.' I've looked over your commands: No. Identifying. Information. Should be spread. Ever.

"I am ashamed on behalf of Holy Harmonia. What are you standing there sniveling for? Leave. Think hard about what you will be doing tomorrow morning to make up for your failure."

"M-m-my lord, I am deeply sorry!" the man cried out, half tripping over himself as he tried to bow deeply to me and run away in uncoordinated succession.

I breathed a sigh of relief as soon as he had disappeared. I wondered if Sarah had heard our exchange, or if she was once more crying into her pillow. She'd thrown a fit again, and the rune scholars had made sure to strengthen the magical barrier. I could tell from how the ice patterned itself across the floor. Yesterday frost eased its way over the ground, now heavy crystals built up a ledge in front of the door, stopped short by an invisible wall. It would be much harder to break past the barrier today.

I took out a marshmallow from the bag I had bought for Sarah and pulled it apart into its constituent pale pink and yellow twists. I ate it thoughtfully, letting one half dissolve in my mouth before the other, then sucking off the sticky sugar from my fingers. Sarah was upset. Would she be upset with me? I cursed Sasarai for ignorantly destroying my happiness once more. I waited for longer than I needed to before threading my way through the magic barrier and opening the door to Sarah's room.

She glowered at me from behind the table in the center of her room. She sat with her arms folded in front of her and chin resting behind them on the table, obscuring what I knew would be a frown. Someone had dressed her neatly and strung beaded ornaments through Sarah's hair. The broken toy cart I had seen yesterday was gone and replaced with a new cloth doll that lay face down on the table.

Ice crunched under my feet as I made my way to one of the other chairs. Sarah said nothing to me as I approached.

"I heard you met my brother." I said as I sat down beside her. I rested my elbows on the table, and my chin on my hands. Sarah avoided my gaze.

"I thought you had dressed fancy."

"Sasarai always got to dress fancy. Was he nice to you?"

Sarah shook her head. "Not really. He was mean like everyone else."

"'Mean' how?" I asked.

Even when Sasarai had hurt me most, even as I hated him, he was far more naïve than anything that could be called "mean".

"They make me read and do magic. They don't talk to me."

"Do you think I'm mean?"

"Nuh-uh."

I startled. The paper bag in my sleeve slipped from my grip and fell on the floor. I picked it up, opened it, and placed the bag on the table in front of Sarah. So much for a grand reveal. She sat up in her chair, curious, but not curious enough to touch it.

"What's that?"

"I got you something from the market this morning. Do you like candies?"

She frowned. "Did I do something good?"

"What? No." I shook my head furiously at the suggestion. Everything in her cute face was skewed up with disgust, not at the marshmallows themselves but what they represented- cheap bribes from rune scholars, a reward for performing whatever tricks they required. "I thought you might like them. I never got sweets when I was your age."

At that time, I wasn't being given much anything at all. Until I was given a choice. The choice I wanted to give Sarah, but to give it to her as a friend and not a stranger.

"You can eat them or not," I added. Somehow, I hoped she wouldn't. The brown bag I had carried with me like a secret treasure all afternoon suddenly seemed sad and ugly. I doubted my own intentions. It was no real gift but a thoughtless bribe, and I was no better than the rune scholars for doing so.

I walked over to the bookshelf, hoping to find a distraction. Sarah was not as desperate enough nor as foolish as I was, to leave my Harmonian prison with a stranger. Nor did I want to be a mere stranger to her. I could put a sleep over her with my rune magic and spirit us both to freedom right now, but that would rob her of the choice that I had treasured so dearly, the choice to live as a human and not some property of Holy Harmonia. I was no hero, I only played at being one. There was no love in my heart like there was in Tir's or Riou's. I had only a howling, lonely wind where it should have been. There would be no shame in failing to be something I was not.

The glass door to the bookcase in Sarah's room was unlocked. I peered through the frosted glass to try and read the spines and failing that, swung open the door. The frost on the handles was so cold I could feel it burn through my uniform gloves. I ran my finger along the spines of the dozens of volumes in Sarah's room, trying to find something to read for her. Though she paid attention last night, I doubted my ability to find another happy story in my own memory. Most of these books were thin, with dates written on the spine. Against my judgement, I pulled down one and thumbed though.

My blood boiled even skimming the words. I had been merely a prisoner. Two decades on, Harmonia had made Sarah into a test subject. Days upon days of notes studied her developing skill with her flowing rune, poking and prodding her to understand what made a little girl born with a rune embedded in her forehead different. Dozens of different hands detailed hypotheses and tests and struggles, weighing the costs and benefits of ever more stressful examinations as their pool of knowledge began to fill more slowly than desired. I could hardly find an entry that used Sarah's name, as much as they detailed her changing height, weight, and other unfeeling statistics.

I snapped the book shut and slid it carefully into place. There were further, unmarked books. None seemed like children's stories. I pulled one down and flipped it open. The pages were mostly filled with pictures, copies of old Sindar carvings telling their stories. I could work with this, even if it meant inventing words to go along with the pictures. There were some notes with scholar's best interpretation of the meaning.

"You want another bedtime story?" I asked Sarah. I might have sounded too critical. I was still upset with her for rejecting the candy I had brought her and that I was now in debt for.

Sarah nodded. "The man like you didn't when I asked."

She crawled into bed and I sat next to her, opening the book for what looked like a picture I could invent something for. I placed the book in between us so she could see the lovingly reproduced carvings inked onto the page.

"That's just a spell." Sarah frowned. "That's not a story."

"What?" I asked, confused. She was little, I told myself, she was just making something up.

"It's a spell." She crawled over next to me and pointed a small finger along the Sindar words in the pictures. She traced her finger along glyphs even I couldn't read, sounding them out in a language even Master Leknaat had never uttered, and sat back. "It's how to remove a True Rune."

I couldn't believe it. My own Rune, existing since the beginning of the world, would not give me that fluency. Sarah was not babbling either. She struggled through pronouncing some words and did not have the meaningless repetition of nonsense syllables. "That's not what it says here." I said, pointing to the attempted translation and notes on the page opposite, "Can you read that?"

I doubted it. Sarah was only seven, and the text was dense for even me. She shook her head. "No. Just that." Sarah placed her tiny hand back on on the pictures, "Mama had a book in Harmonian, but they wouldn't let me keep it. It was, 'Sword and Shield'."

I remembered that story. It was in our library at Dunan, but I only ever saw Nanami read it to Pilika. The Story of Creation was simple enough. No one but a small child needed anything simpler and illustrated.

"Maybe this is a wrong book." I said. I was agitated. No wonder the Temple wanted her so badly. Not only was Sarah born with a rune, she had an intrinsic understanding of a long-dead language. I was jealous. I was not that special. I was furious. A girl should not be used as experiment and dictionary. "Did you ever read this spell to anyone else?"

Sarah shook her head.

"Good." I could feel my hands starting to shake as I closed the book. It would be wonderful, to be able to remove a True Rune. I hated mine enough that I would do it now, if Sarah could tell me and I could forget that my Rune was the only thing animating my empty husk of a body. If I died now, Sarah might never have a chance at freedom. It was terrifying that any civilization ever had that knowledge. "I think I'll tell you something else, then. Say, I know a story about a little girl, about your age. She was very smart like you, and she was a… princess too. And one day, there was an evil vampire that appeared in her kingdom..."

I invented more than I had last night. Lilly was just a mayor's daughter. I enjoyed retelling Lilly and Sierra as greater heroes than the real saviors of the day that the vampire Neclord was destroyed. Sarah seemed to be more engaged as well, constantly stopping me to ask questions.

Sarah yawned when I finished. It was late.

"Did you think about what I said yesterday? Do you want to leave here with me?" I asked.

"I dunno. Where would you go?"

"I can take you anywhere you want."

"I've never been outside Harmonia. They only took me to ruins anyway."

"The places in the stories I've told you are real. I could take you there."

"Let me think."

"I'll be back tomorrow." I said and remembered how Sasarai had met her this morning. He might return as well. "If you need to really make sure it's me, I can tell you how. But you must make sure you never tell anyone else. It's a special secret."

"How?"

I pulled off the glove on my right hand and pushed up my sleeve cuff. On the back of my hand I willed my True Rune to reveal itself with a delicate green glow across the swirling tripartite mark.

"This rune. It's a wind rune and there's not another one like it in the world."

Sarah reached out to touch the back of my hand with her tiny fingers. The sensation sent a jolt through me. She traced each green lobe of the True Wind Rune innocently. It hurt, though without physical pain. I wanted to tell her that I was born with it, just like she was, but then she might be more interested in me for my cursed birth than for who I was trying desperately to be for her. It would be a deep and personal connection, yet trivial. I doubted it would be enough for either of us in the long run.

"Do you remember what it looks like?"

Sarah nodded, and I covered up my hand again. I felt safer, covered up. I felt like I could put on a mask of humanity and speak to Sarah as one person to another and not like a mere thing pretending it could.

"Why do you like me?" Sarah asked.

Sarah's clear blue eyes bore into mine, both suspicious and intrigued.

"You remind me a lot of myself, when I was your age. I grew up in a room a little like this in One Temple."

Only a little like Sarah's room. It also had four walls and no windows. One wall was iron bars. Water pooling between the flagstones on the floor reflected the light of the small torches across the hall. I had a little pallet in the corner that had a sour-sweet smell from the moldering straw. If it wasn't for my Rune, I would have died in the dark and the damp of some illness long ago. I never knew people could get sick until I first left Leknaat's tower at fifteen. I refused to tell Sarah that. She would pity me.

"They didn't make me read them spells or anything, but sometimes I could visit my brother when he needed something to play with. Someone to play with." I corrected myself, "It's sad, being lonely. You shouldn't need to be."

"No… …Mama used to give me a kiss goodnight every night." Sarah announced as pulled her covers up and underneath her chin.

I paused, puzzled by her statement until I realized it was not really a statement, but a suggestion.

"You want a good night kiss?" I asked.

Sarah nodded. I smoothed back her pale blonde bangs and gave her a soft kiss on the forehead, right above where her flowing rune marked her skin. The feeling of skin against my lips was strange—soft and surprisingly warm. Loose strands of hair that escaped my hand fell forward and tickled my nose. I had never kissed anyone before, nor been kissed.

I watched her turn once or twice before falling into a deep, peaceful sleep. My first kiss, I thought, if it counted. Sarah was getting clever. I could read her stories, like her Mama once had. Now she certainly knew I would grant anything else she asked. If I was using her, she was doing the same to me.

Sarah smiled at some dream. There would be no nightmares tonight. I arose from her bedside. Whatever ice had once filled the room in her distress had melted. That might tip off the other shifts, but could not be helped. I couldn't let there be any other evidence I had broken orders and entered Sarah's room. I picked up the bag of marshmallows as I left. It was empty. I smiled. She must have eaten them while my back was turned, mourning my defeat when she rejected them. I might still have a chance.

Yet, I didn't know if I would have time. When my shift ended, I avoided returning to the dormitory. Instead I tried to find a way out for Sarah and myself. I could teleport, but—and at this I clutched my heart—I was not so sure that I could move two people. Even thinking of casting that spell I knew it might be too trying. I still was recovering from the strain of using my True Wind Rune to destroy Sasarai's army. Spiess and his wires bore heavily on my mind, appearing to stay flexible until they snapped.

I found no way to leave Sarah's cell unnoticed. I had to pass through the office where I first met Dross no matter what. Even at night, passing through the front gates would be a ridiculous proposition with how heavily they were armed. At best, I found we could escape through the stables or the kitchens. I paused in a courtyard outside the dining hall when I finished, still hesitant to sleep. It was a broad circle ringed with benches both at the outer walls and the base of an ancient tree in the center. There was no one else with me this late at night.

The shadows of tree branches in the moonlight played dully across my eyes, but I saw my Rune's memories more than that. Even though it was the height of the growing season, to me the ground seemed covered with snow, and the air hung with peace and a little sadness. If I concentrated, anyway, though ever since that battle in Highland, I had been able to see it more easily. It was the same greyness as my nightmare last night but did not terrify me so much when I was awake.

"You can't sleep, huh?"

It was Matt. I blinked away the Rune's visions. I was surprised that he was awake at such an hour but didn't say anything about it.

"Not really." I was a little touched that he would even bother to ask.

He sat down beside me. "Me neither. I've just been thinking about Ben all night. You missed a lot of excitement down by us last shift, minding our little dead-end paradise. They're scrambling to find a second set of guards to stand watch with us. Plus one- the guy who took over for me quit. Makes me look not so bad, huh?"

"Really? What happened?" I feigned ignorance, afraid to know what truths had spread.

"Word is someone has been sneaking into the prisoner's room. Gave the Bishop visiting today quite a fright. So you're Sasarai's doppelganger?"

"What makes you think that?" I challenged, too hotly.

"This ruckus started just after you arrived. I caught the guy who's leaving at the start of your shift. Never seen a guy so green in the face before in my life. Got him alone with some liquid courage to settle him down and he spilled. Drank all I had left too. Those things, plus what you said over lunch today… I'm not stupid." Matt shrugged, "You know, sunshine, you're a nice guy. Why do you hide it?"

"What gives you that idea?" I scowled.

"Well," Matt continued, unfazed by my tone of voice, "You didn't hesitate at all in town today. And got us all lunch on top of that. And from what I heard that prisoner seems to have taken a shine to you. So: Why the cold façade?"

I smiled weakly. "You might be right, but in the end…" I had known next words for a long time, "Isn't it better if one person is lonely than two? At least, that's what I tell myself. I was alone before I met my master and choosing to go with her didn't change anything. By the time she allowed me to be among others, I had burned so many bridges… and then I had to return to my master's care. When I got a second chance, I knew ahead of time that if I said, 'see you later' when the war was over, it would be a bare-faced lie."

"No offense, but your master sounds like a jerk."

"Don't you dare say that again!" I snapped, "I owe her my life."

Not only that, but what I grudgingly called my humanity, pitiful as it was. In a way, I wasn't so certain that his remark, with all its crassness, did not hold a grain of truth. Yes, I had chosen all those years ago to leave Harmonia with Leknaat. I was grateful to be given the choice to live, but in the end only found more loneliness. I was grateful for all that she had taught me even so much of it was the sorrow of war, death, and seeing joy that I would never know. Yet I still wanted to pass on that little core of kindness and hope to someone else.

"She must be one hell of a master." Matt shook his head, "So then, what's up with you and this prisoner?"

"I can't tell you that."

"Come on, it's fairly obvious, _Eurus_." Matt stressed my false name so much it was like the blade of a sword cutting into my breast. He knew it was a false name. I found myself scrambling for enough sense to ready a spell to silence him, but banished the thought at what he said next, "You're an asshat to everyone you don't plan on seeing again. You're not to her, so clearly you have some designs you're not telling. But, what happens on your watch isn't any of my business, right?"

I was stunned enough to look at him with my mouth agape, and caught him winking, "Matt… thank you."

"It's nothing. Tomorrow morning I'll remind the kid to be quiet and pretend she never saw anything. You guys can't have your chances ruined. I'm a little jealous, actually. I'm not so brave to help out a stranger, even when I know I should."

"It's not so noble…" I said. Riou or Tir would have done the right thing in any situation. If it weren't for my past, I would have never cared in the first place.

We sat for a while in silence together before I asked, "Were you close to your brother?"

"Very. He was a few years older, but we might as well have been twins. After our little brother died in the Outlands my mother was adamant I get out of the regular army before she had no sons. She was right."

"What would you do if you met that True Rune user?"

"Revenge would be nice, but the odds aren't. I'd need to get a whole army of my own. That would might be easy enough- lots of people would want to take him down for the same reason. And I suppose your own twin needs to save face. But what would revenge do? I'm not even mad, they were doing their jobs. You were there, what do you think?"

"I can only think of what would happen if someone would use the full power of a True Rune. War is hell enough as is. How many more would have died? Maybe the all of Highland and Harmonia's forces both."

When I had used my Rune then, everyone had begged me to do it again. We were in the middle of a war. I'd refused, saying I hated how it made me break a sweat. It broke more than that. The sight of what I could really do if I intended to was the second most frightening thing of my life. I wouldn't want to do that again if I had to, and if I had to I wasn't sure I could. Besides, if I told them the truth, they might worry. And then they might care.

"Come on, it's way late. Get your beauty sleep, sunshine." Matt advised, "Tomorrow will be an interesting day because of you."

 _I was running. I was running like my life depended on it, with magical lightning and fire blooming all around me and singing my tattered clothes. But I was not running away; I was running towards._

" _Stop! Don't you dare defile the High Priest's sanctum!" voices shouted from behind me._

 _I lashed out at them automatically with my wind magic, not looking back to see if I hit them or not. The onslaught of spells cast to stop me became fewer in number. I could feel once more the desperation in my child-self's heart. These memories were all my own, not the unfeeling recollection of the True Wind Rune._

 _I couldn't remember how I escaped from my prison, but I did remember why. Sasarai had spoken often of his father, the High Priest. It may have been merely a figure of speech, but I believed him. I hung on every word of Sasarai's back then. I had decided that if Sasarai was powerful enough to give me a name, his father might have all the wisdom and skill necessary to set me free. My Rune led the way, feeling out the Circle Rune. My Rune cleared the way, destroying iron bars and magic barriers and human lives alike with raw, barely-directly power. At that point I didn't even realize I could have freed myself at any time, and that my own lack of will was far stronger a prison than anything Harmonia had yet built to contain me._

 _I stumbled, hitting my head against a step before crawling back to my feet, blood streaming into my eyes. Still I continued on. I knew I was close, close to Sasarai's father. I ran down the gently curving hall of the Circle Palace until I came to the great doors of his sanctum. They towered above me, inlaid with blue lapis and white enamel emblems. I grabbed the handles, the magic on them hot to my touch. I wasn't allowed in but yet again I forced myself though. I half-recalled the sensations that adrenaline had dulled at the time. The clatter of guards' footsteps barely registered above the pulse of my heartbeat through my temples. I distantly tasted the blood that trickled down my face and mingled with sweat- salty, sour, sweet, and bitter._

 _The doors opened a crack, more from my magic than my physical strength. I took a step back, horrified by the sight in front of me._

 _I saw Hikusaak. I saw Sasarai's father, and knew he was my own as well. My sight was tinted red with blood, making the High Priest a vision not of blue and white, but black and red. He was a mummy, embedded in his stately throne by a mass of crystals enshrining it. His ceremonial robes were in tatters, revealing through holes the emaciated, pale flesh beneath. If I had not looked into his eyes, I would have thought him dead. But those eyes- they glowered at me. They hated me with all the absoluteness and passion of a man who had an eternity to spend between life and death. They scorned me, knowing I was a failed piece of his puzzle and his salvation. As Hikusaak looked at me, I could feel the Circle Rune's power permeate my body. It was a cold, uncompromising sensation that filled me until I felt like I would drown in it._

 _My magic died, along with my willpower. I had run towards a destiny I thought I wanted and found only dismay. In Hikusaak's sight, I was nothing. I truly was nothing. The floor shuddered underneath my feet and threw me to the ground outside the High Priest's sanctum. I rolled over onto my hands and knees, seeking to face my attackers. My wind magic sputtered, barely able to conjure a weak breeze to defend myself so long as Hikusaak looked on._

 _In front of me I saw Sasarai, splendid as always in his blue robes of state. On either side were guards, and Sasarai's minder waited expectantly behind him._

" _Please! Do something!" I begged Sasarai. I couldn't understand why he would stand so peacefully among all the magicians conjuring spells to subdue me. Wouldn't he help? My eyes met his and found no pity. I couldn't understand how he failed to recognize me, though underneath singed and tattered rags, the mask of blood on my face, and my tangled hair, how would he have been able to recognize his own face?_

 _Sasarai raised his right hand above his head._

" _In the name of His Holiness the High Priest of Harmonia, I, Sasarai, command you, True Earth Rune, to seal our enemy!"_

 _His magic weighed me down like lead. It took all my strength to not fall completely prostrate. In that moment, I felt something for the first time that had yet to find words for. I felt betrayed. I felt hatred. I felt defiant. I would not let Sasarai have the satisfaction of watching me fall completely, not so long as I had an ounce of strength left between myself and my True Rune._

" _I… promise… you." I said, my head bowed as if resisting an invisible giant trying to mash my face into the ground with his boot. My arms and legs buckled wildly but I willed myself to stay up. "I'll… get you back."_

 _I collapsed._


	4. Chapter 4

I felt my lungs trying to leap from my chest and thought that it was Sasarai's magic, though I never remembered being unable to even gasp for air when he betrayed me, and I saw none of the grey stillness of the True Rune's dreams either.

My eyes snapped open. I saw Matt leaning over me, his hand over my mouth.

"You were going to scream again, sunshine. Don't want give Dross a reason to ask for a mulligan."

Matt didn't take his hand off my mouth yet. I licked his palm and he yanked it away at last.

"Gross! Get me dinner first, at least!" Matt cried, rubbing his hand off on his pants. I enjoyed his expression of utter disgust and disbelief.

"I got you lunch yesterday." I pointed out.

"Close but no cigar."

I heard dice roll against the table in the center of the room. Both Dross and Spiess leaned in intently, and Dross swept in a tiny pile of coins over to himself.

"No need for a mulligan anyway. Go and start your shift, Matt." Dross said.

"You guys'll need a third." Matt waved away our boss, "Hey Eurus, you want to join in some Chinchirorin? Stakes are just a potch."

"That's against the rules, isn't it?"

"'The sky is high and Hikusaak far away,' right?"

"I could spit and hit the One Temple from here." I said. I would have loved to spit at my father, watch a gob of saliva trickle down his desiccated skull, if I knew I could face him.

"Come on, no one's seen him in an age."

I knew better. At the mention of his name I could feel the High Priest's eyes burn into me again. I wondered if he knew I was here even now, feeling my presence from his tomb of a throne. If he did, what would he do about it? What could he do? I didn't want to stick around to find out, but there were still so many long hours until I could see Sarah again, and I wasn't sure yet if she would want to leave with me or not.

"I'm not interested."

The rattle of the dice began to annoy me. I needed to save what luck I had, and I hated the idea of getting even further into debt for people I would never see again. I could not truly practice my magic here without tipping all Harmonia off as to what I really was. I walked over to the battered shelf on one end of the room and squatted down to look it over. I saw nothing of interest until my eyes fell on a battered back of cards shoved into a back corner. Solitaire. My sort of game.

Sitting back on the bed, I shuffled the deck and dealt the first card. The Hierophant. My stomach turned.

"Why do you have a tarot deck here?" I asked.

"Oh, that's from guy before you. We used to borrow it from him, but I guess he left in such a hurry he couldn't be bothered to find it back." Dross said.

"Do you read cards?" Spiess asked.

"A little."

More than a little, though my master's focus in divination was far more in astrology. No one had ever asked me to do a reading for them, and my own skill was rusty with disuse. Nevertheless, I had time to waste. Perhaps the future was not so bad. I quickly shuffled the Hierophant back into the deck, hoping he would not reappear. I thought of my question as I shuffled, willing the cards to give me their answer.

 _What will be the outcome of my stay here?_

I drew three cards and placed them in a line that bridged the circle emblem of Harmonia woven into my bed's quilt from left to right. I flipped the leftmost card over deliberately. An inverted ten of cups. The iconography was different from what I was used to. I paused to try and take in the variation in meaning. That the idea of a happy, unified family being thrown upside down was obvious. There was no hope in the rainbow that arced below their heads. Soft clouds surrounded the scene, and two birds adorned opposite corners. Bluebirds, I thought, Harmonian colors with a bloody red breast.

A second card: The World. I felt a shiver down my spine. A liminal card was not unexpected, but the exuberance of the carefully detailed artwork took me by surprise. This was a joyous change. Perhaps a destined one, with the stars in this deck and not the flat blue sky I was used to seeing. A small smile slipped across my face. Maybe this was going well for both me and Sarah.

Past and Present were accounted for. Only the Future remained. My smile fell. The Two of Swords was as bleak and precarious as The World was happy. Worse, I could only see Magician's Isle and Master Leknaat in its illustration. It hadn't seemed so in the other deck, where the woman pictured with balanced swords crossed in front of her chest had her hair back and sat on a wide plain. Yet with her long black hair and white gown whipping in the wind beneath a starless night sky, seated on the ruins of an island tower, and a blindfold covering her eyes, I could see no one else but my Master. The sea behind her crashed violently on the rocks, and I was no longer so certain that the moon was a waxing crescent, but being eclipsed instead.

I looked over the spread again, trying to gain some sense of the whole that would lead me away from seeing only doom in the final card. My eyes were drawn to the pairs across each cards: two birds, two wands, two swords. If they had been doves, I could read them as peace giving into battle. Battle was not so strange. I could read Tir and the fall of Scarlet Moon Empire in the first card, Riou and the Rune of Beginning in the second. I studied the balance on either side of The World between an unhappy day and an uncertain night and the tight bond of water and wind bridging the pair. I could see themes of home as well on either side of transformation. It seemed decided. Sarah and I were linked inextricably, and this was our new beginning. I would have to convince her to come with me. Yet...

I picked up the final card once more. Two swords crossed beneath Leknaat's neck, one pointing to darkness, the other to light. Was it to protect her, or to threaten? The glimmers of watery moonlight on steel were the only stars in that sky. The card could go either way. It was up to me to decide.

Then I noticed something on the first card. The father figure in it had a star on his chest. I could feel the eyes of the Hierophant staring at me from its place hidden in the deck. He might be a hero. The One Hero, Hikusaak, and then I would have read all the other cards wrong. The wreath of The World was no longer a gate, but a wall holding the natural world at bay and hoarding the fallen jewels from the primordial Sword and Shield, the True Runes. The woman was not running towards me but escaping the watch of an empty green eye. For the last card, it began to look desperately monochrome compared to the past and present. All the life of the previous two cards had been sucked out, and if the woman wished to survive the barren darkness surrounding her, she would have to remain perfectly still for all eternity. I shuddered, remembering how my dream last night ended.

The dice stopped their rolling and Dross stood up to leave.

"Maybe I'll see you later." He yawned, "Didn't expect to have to do more interviews so soon. Bishops'll get what they deserve for wanting any body they can find by tomorrow."

"Good luck." Spiess said as he cleaned off the table. The dice made their way back to the shelf but Spiess stopped short of picking up his book to study once more.

"Hey, if you're telling fortunes, will you do mine?"

"I'm out of practice. Don't expect much divination from cards used for gaming, either."

"Then it's worth whatever I bought you yesterday. Any candy left?"

I shook my head and gathered up the deck to bring to the table. For being the most easygoing, Spiess was the most pigheaded out of all of them.

I shuffled the cards quickly and broke the deck into thirds placing them between myself and Spiess.

"Think of a question and pick a pile."

"I want to know what position my dad will have for me at the company when I finish here." Spiess said as he tapped the leftmost pile.

I removed the other piles and dealt ten cards off the top of the remaining one. With each new card in the spread the picture became more interesting, especially when I recalled some of his comments from the last two days. The suits overflowed with cups. I drew the two of swords again, but this time it seemed far more uninteresting.

"Would there be one that would make you happy?" I asked.

"I thought you were telling my future, not me."

"I am."

"So are you going to explain all that silverware?"

"You're really ignorant of how this works, aren't you?" I sighed, "I need context. Otherwise I might interpret wrong."

"Well, have a go at it."

"You're looking in the wrong place. There's a lot pointing to disappointment on this path, I don't think you're even happy with it now. There's a lot pointing to a creative or emotional nature, though. You might want to go your own way and pursue that instead."

Spiess snorted. "Well! That's a new one."

"Cartomancy is not my strength." I emphasized, not wanting to lay blame on a lousy deck- unfamiliar and tainted by its use in gaming.

"If that's true I'd be terrified of what you can really see. I'd rather be turning out brass instruments than bar stock if I had a choice in my life. Last fortune teller said I'd be an accountant."

I gathered up the cards and dealt another quick spread of three, wondering loosely about Sarah. An exhausted farmer rested proud over his crop of seven pentacles. A brown-haired boy gifted a younger blonde girl one of six cups overflowing with flowers. The hanged man smiled at me. Hard-won success, innocent love, and self-sacrifice. I was a little afraid to study them further.

"What else is there to do around here?" I asked. I did not want to stay around the dormitory or the prisons, for fear that Sasarai might appear again.

"The baths are nice this time of day. If you like reading, there's the library."

"Can you show me where the library is?"

"Sure. I have some books to return anyway."

I kept my head down on the way to the library. The corridors Spiess led me through were far too open and busy for my liking. I felt like a thousand eyes were on me, from Temple notables and their lackeys down to the slaves that skittered around unheeded and invisible. Harmonian banners watched me unblinkingly with their large, blue, empty eyes. It was only paranoia, I told myself. They had no reason to pay attention to me, a small and unimportant creature following another Temple Guard around. The banners were inanimate, and yet their gaze was that much harder to dismiss.

Eventually we reached the library. The scale left me awestruck. Even the great hall of Gregminster Palace seemed small compared to what uncoiled before me. Bookshelves towered thirty feet high along walls that were yet taller, until the alabaster-soft chandeliers lights seemed like distant moons. The floors were a maze of terraced curves whose once deep-blue rugs were worn grey and threadbare, in some places even tattered so much that the white marble floors peeked through. I found the closest stair crept down steps that had been worn with deep grooves from centuries of use. It was silent here. Silent, but not still. There was hardly a corner without a Harmonian scholar. Some even had foreign students studying among tables and couches. Were this not in the heart of Crystal Valley, I would have gladly lived here instead of Leknaat's lonely tower.

"Hey! Watch where you're going!" a deep voice warned as I very nearly bumped into someone. I had been too awestruck by my surroundings when I was not distracted by the uneven steps beneath my feet.

I recognized the heavy ochre-colored wool coat of the man in front of me. Looking up, I recognized the heavyset, angular jaw and thick black mustache as well. Our eyes met, and the man also recognized me.

"Luc? What are you doing here? It's been years."

I felt a chill down my spine at the sound of my real name. I looked around, but Spiess was nowhere in sight. The only other person nearby was a young boy standing a few steps behind and waiting impatiently for the man in front of me to move.

"I'm visiting." I said. "It's a long story. Who is that with you, Leon? Your son?"

Leon looked at me skeptically. "Grandson. Say hello, Albert."

"Why, is he someone important?" the brat turned up his nose. I couldn't imagine him being related to any of the other Silverbergs I knew, not with that attitude and not with his curiously wine-red hair. His caterpillar eyebrows, at least, looked like Leon's—Especially when furrowed as they were.

"I know your grandfather from the Gate Rune Wars. The Dunan Unification War as well."

"So, is he important, Grandfather?" Albert asked Leon again, ignoring me.

Leon grunted his disapproval, "Learn that for yourself, Albert. You'll never become a master strategist if you rely on others' judgement. Know theirs but form your own. Excuse me, Luc, we have an appointment at Soldelt Academy we need to make."

I stepped aside. Albert squinted at me from underneath his heavy eyebrows as he passed and finally snapped his head back to follow Leon, as if he had made his judgement and I was, ultimately, unimportant. The way Albert carried himself even at his young age made me doubt that anything outside himself and his grandfather's opinion would ever be important. If I met the brat ever again, it would be too soon.

I found the section dedicated to Sindar research without further interruption. It was a tight network of book stacks with hardly enough room for a ladder between the shelves. I took in the musty smell of old paper and leather, crumbling bindings and the faint ghosts of generations. I devoured the old tomes until my fingers were black with accumulated dust, scanning each where I stood or else cracking the fragile books open gently, cradled between my knees as I sat on the floor.

By the time Spiess found me, I had learned nothing relating the Sindar Ruins and the True Runes that reinforced what I had learned from Sarah. I could not even find the same reproduced carvings that I had seen in her room. I was relieved. It meant that in all likelihood, the only learning Harmonia had obtained from Sarah was contained in the books in her room. I could only imagine the power Harmonia could control if they could remove True Runes from their bearers at will.

Matt waved at me as I approached Sarah's prison.

"Man, _Luc_ , you really must be something else. The little witch has been talking my ear off about you."

"Only your ear, I hope."

"Yeah, not even a single rune scholar today. I suppose they want to rework their own plans in addition to the guard"

"You don't seem very worried about breaking our rules on silence anymore."

"It won't matter much longer, will it?"

Matt was right. It was only luck that that no one else had come by. Did I have a day left to rescue her? Hours? Or was my chance already spent? At the same time, I knew I had nearly won. She liked me, despite my innumerable flaws. I had run away from Harmonia with a stranger. Sarah would have the chance to escape with a friend. She only needed to seize it.

"It's not my decision."

"Whatever. See you, sunshine. Maybe."

Once more I waited until Matt had disappeared, and then a little longer. I suddenly regretted that I had no gifts to bring Sarah tonight, but it was too late. She was in a better mood to begin with, at the very least. There was no trace of frost around the magic barrier.

When I entered Sarah's room she was laying on the floor with her back towards me, propping herself up on her elbows as she stared down two dolls. One sat propped up against the wall, her blonde hair mussed up from play. The other danced on its own accord. As soon as I closed the door behind me Sarah startled at the noise, and the dancing figure winked out of existence. Illusion magic. I wondered who had taught her, or if she knew it as automatically as she knew Sindar. It was nothing that a mere flowing rune would grant her.

"Luc!" Sarah smiled as she ran up to greet me, and then remembered, "You need to show me your hand."

I grinned a little as I revealed my True Rune to her. She nodded with satisfaction.

"You did a very good job with that spell." I said.

"Can you do that?"

I shook my head, "I don't know that magic. I can show you something else, though. May I use your doll?"

Sarah nodded and gathered up her doll in her arms from its resting place and presented it to me. I placed the thing back on the ground and willed my wind magic to animate it. The doll sat up and performed a curtsey for Sarah. For something so small, it required more concentration than power, like threading a needle. Animating earth golems as I had in the past was far easier, but that had bought joy to no one. This doll, an empty thing puppeted by the Wind Rune, made Sarah smile as I manipulated it around.

"Can you teach me how to do that?" Sarah asked when I tired and let the doll flop into her arms.

"I don't see why not." I said. I could learn Gate Rune techniques from Leknaat. Surely I could share my own magic with Sarah.

"You're nice. I want you to stay here forever."

"I can't. I have to leave tonight." I said, "I won't be able to come back and see you again."

"I want to go with you."

I froze. I did not need to be the one to ask her tonight.

"Where do you want to go?"

"With you." Sarah said adamantly.

"You don't have a family you want to be with? Or a hometown?"

Sarah shook her head.

"Do you remember the boy dragon knight I told you about the other night? I could take you to meet him. Or Lilly. I think they would like you a lot."

"No." she sulked, "You're my friend. I want to stay with you."

'My friend.' I could hardly suppress a wide grin. It was too ridiculous to believe. Matt wasn't lying, and I had managed to befriend Sarah, or at least, what passed for friendship over three days between a seven-year-old girl and a twenty-year old man. I hoped one day I could convince her that my friendship would mean letting go. Staying with me would mean a life alone at Magician's Isle, growing old and dying as Leknaat and I remained eternally young. On her own, she might find more friends, and I could find my own joy in the shadow of hers. I sighed. As long as she was not here. The Rune Scholar's notebooks on Sarah, locked in their cabinet, leered from behind me. The clock on the wall clucked its tongue in time with the seconds, reminding me that time was running out.

"Do you really want to go home with me?" I asked, "We would need to leave now."

"Mm-hm." Sarah nodded vigorously. She reached out to take my hand in a vice grip, as if I might have some intention of losing her.

Friends. I thought as I steeled myself for our escape. I was taking one with me. I was leaving others behind.

"Do you want to keep any of these books?" I asked Sarah before we left.

She again shook her head. I had no taste for them either. I held my right hand up to the cabinet shelves as I held Sarah close with my left, and willed my Wind Rune to tear them to dust. I was more thorough than when I destroyed Dross' wastepaper basket. I was more satisfied. It might take decades at least for Harmonia to recover what it lost in one moment.

There was nothing more left for us. Sarah hesitated as we took the first steps into the hallway.

"It's a little scary, isn't it? At least it was for me." I said, "Don't worry. The way out isn't far- if we both pretend like we belong here, no one will notice. Can you do that?"

"I think so."

"I know you can."

We walked alone down the hall until we finally came to the office where I first met Dross. I didn't know who to expect there, but I did not expect to see him. He had a prisoner to guard, he had said. He was serious about his duties. And yet here he was in front of us, searching through his desk. Dross looked up. His face was pale with distress to begin with, and then all color drained. Sarah clung to the back of my legs, wrapping the wool fabric of my uniform tight around her tiny fists.

"Eurus?" Dross asked, looking up. His eyes fell on Sarah. "Oh Eurus, Eurus…"

I reached back and held Sarah's head gently, trying to tell her wordlessly that not all was lost yet.

"What are you doing here, Dross?" I asked.

"Execution was rescheduled again, for next month. My former prince could not wait that long—more paperwork. But you? Please don't tell me…"

"Sarah doesn't belong here. I'm taking her home." I said firmly. I wanted to lie again, but I could see in the quivering corners of his lips it would be foolish. Dross knew. He may have never seen Sarah in the flesh, but he knew who she was. "Are you going to stop me?"

Dross opened his mouth to speak but hesitated. His eyes travelled warily from Sarah to me and back, weighing his options. He knew I was formidable with wind magic that could as easily put him to sleep as wound him. The latter would be a fine alternative to whatever Harmonia would do when they found out Sarah and I disappeared without a breath of warning.

"I will give you an hour before I alert the other Temple Guard. You're throwing away a bright future, but if I had known… I understand why."

"Thank you, Mr. Ross."

"Hurry. Before I change my mind."

"Come on, Sarah."

No one stopped us as we escaped Crystal Palace. The hallways were almost deserted. The few that did wander the halls showed no interest in me in my uniform, nor Sarah with her perfect conformance to the first-class Harmonian ideal- even her rune was not out of place, so long as no one knew it was inborn and not purposefully affixed. Even at the front gate of the palace, I was given only a wordless nod and allowed to leave. It made me want to laugh at how much they trusted their gilt world, not knowing or caring how much beneath the fine glitter was poisonous lead.

"You're doing very well." I told Sarah as we walked through the empty boulevard towards the main gate out of Crystal Valley. The night was silent and clear. I felt a measure of relief that only the moon and stars looked down on me, not the ever-present Harmonian flag. Nevertheless, I picked up pace. Soon Dross would tell someone in the Temple Guard a story about how I left with Sarah and they would create a small force to capture us. I wondered if Sasarai would be alerted as well or allowed to sleep comfortably. I would not be able to face his True Earth Rune easily. It gave me almost physical pain that I would not be able to teleport us to safety.

"My feet hurt." Sarah complained as we neared the end of the hour.

"We'll find a place to stay the night outside Crystal Valley. It won't be long."

My mouth dropped as we approached the main gate. It was open to the world. Harmonia evidently had no fear of thieves or ruffians entering the town at night. On the other side was another step towards freedom. We would find an inn or farmhouse somewhere out the city and lay low until we could more easily sneak out of the country, and then cross Dunan unmolested until we would be close enough I could find passage to Magician's Isle. It would be easy.

"You're out late." A gate guard noted, putting me on edge and breaking me out of my reverie.

"The little lady insisted she try to find constellations. It's a good night, but too bright in the city. Quite a student, isn't she?"

"Sure enough. I saw a shooting star earlier." The guard volunteered.

"An omen." I agreed, "We won't be long."

The warning bells began to ring not long after entered the broad, paved road outside Crystal Valley. Sarah squeezed my hand painfully and pull me back like I suddenly dragged an anchor.

"Stay calm." I said, swinging her steel-stiff arm back and forth in an attempt to loosen it up, "We have a lot of time. They still need to figure out which way we went."

We had little time. There was no place to stay in sight. I picked up pace yet more, feeling Sarah limp behind me.

"Luc, I can't…" Sarah sobbed.

I could sympathize. Leknaat had whisked me away with a single spell. Only later did I learn what real work was. For the first months, there was never a moment my body did not ache with the newness of physical labor.

"I'll carry you." I offered, "Get on my back."

I knelt down and Sarah wrapped her arms around my neck and her legs around my waist. She was heavier than I thought she would be. Ignoring my own advice, I began to run. I ran until I could hear the sound of shouts and galloping hooves and hobnailed boots coming from behind and feel the heat of magic burst around me. I was not fast. I was not strong. Soon, Temple Guard surrounded Sarah and me. Their words were a blur of warnings to stand down, for the sake of ourselves and in obedience to Hikusaak. All their warnings were as one to me. I would not let us be captured. I willed my Rune to fight back against their spells and drive my pursuers away, but my concentration was muddied by thoughts of keeping Sarah safe and trying to avoid the spells that landed ahead of me.

One of their magicians managed to cast a silencing spell on both of us. Then I knew it was hopeless. Gradually horsemen hemmed us in at the sides, magic blocking my way forward with flame and lightning until men could take their place. Temple Guard armed with swords surrounded us completely, backed by more armed with spears and bows. I had only my magic, and their spells had dulled that until only truly calling on the power of my Rune would break my silence.

I pulled Sarah off my back and held her head to my chest so she would not need to see what was going to happen next. I was glad I did not need to use my hands to wield a weapon to fight but could hold Sarah close and cover her ears instead. I called on my magic, straining to bring forth the power of the True Wind Rune from underneath the Temple Guard's silencing spells.

Sarah and I were at the eye of a razor-sharp storm that roared around us. My body trembled. In my desperation, my Rune had taken me too far. I could not hold its rage back. Men and women of the Temple Guard were cut to pieces by my magic and their blood fell like black rain in the night, spattering the ground, my face, and Sarah's hair and dress. The fight was over in an instant, but the wind howled on. I could not bring myself to let go of Sarah. I couldn't let her see so quickly the horrors that had become familiar to me over two wars, the horrors that I had helped create. I could feel her hiccup against me, even if I could not hear her over the cyclone. I held her for as long as I could, until the fury of the Wind Rune drained all my strength, and my world fell to silent blackness.


	5. Chapter 5

_Corpse-like, I lay on the ground. I was not broken, not yet, but I was mangled by betrayal. In my dreams and memories I stared at a dark ceiling that was the only sky I knew. I breathed shallowly. I fancied that if I would keep perfectly still my Rune would tire of such a boring charade of life and flee of its own will._

 _From time to time I could hear Rune Scholars talk outside my cell. They never even talked at me, only to each other._

" _We should move fast." I heard one day. "It's failing in the same way as before. We can't lose the Rune. Worse, what if it recovers and escapes again? It may talk. We mustn't let anyone unauthorized know about…"_

" _Really, now." Another voice interrupted. I could hear the scholar roll his eyes at the suggestion, "Look at it. At the new magic barriers. It's not going anywhere."_

 _I did not have the energy to hate their visits for destroying the easy-flowing monotony of my wait. Every word hurt because it was a rhythm of sound and breath that I could count the seconds by. Every word was a condemnation of who I was. "Was", as if I at one point had a real chance to have been. Yet the pain was distant and I could allow it to wash over me, another weight against my barely-stirring lungs, another affirmation that it was not wrong to be still and wish for oblivion._

" _What do you think," a different man said on a different day, "are any of the components salvageable or is the whole thing a failure?"_

" _It was only a matter of the ritual, as best we know. Now it's grown, we may be able to make a several new normal Rune spheres in addition to another ambulatory vessel."_

" _That's good, we were running low… I hope they develop autonomous ones soon. It's a waste of time and effort to have to discover they're faulty only after they're made, and to have to wait until we have a new True Rune on hand in order to create one."_

 _Their words disappointed me. I could piece together what they said and the resemblance of myself and Sasarai and our father, and finally see there was little to tell us apart but which True Rune we bore. We would be made and remade as long as Harmonia demanded it. I could see myself fracturing over and over, each shard a piece of me and yet none of me, and feared what I would remember. One piece would receive my Rune. The Rune would never forget._

 _Then in another moment, a woman spoke to me. I thought she was Death, for she was as pale as the moon and dressed in a hooded, flowing white robe, and she was inside my cell without any door ever being opened. My Rune recognized hers, telling me that she was a guardian of the paths between worlds. She knelt at my side and caressed my dirty, greasy face. I recoiled at being disrupted so. In retrospect, I should have embraced such a rare display of warmth from the woman who would become my master._

" _You are no mere vessel." She said, "You are human."_

 _I felt my cheeks pinch and grow hot. It was cruel of her to lie to me. The rune scholars told me what I was. Sasarai and Hikusaak showed me what I was. I only needed to accept it._

" _I can show you how to write your own destiny." Leknaat continued, wiping away a fat tear as it beaded in the corner of my eye, "You are human, Luc. If you choose to be."_

 _Holding my cheek, her thumb caressed my temple, writing slow spirals that eased an ache that had become so constant I forgot I ever had it. It was a touch that told me that there was still such a thing as compassion for a creation like myself. A love that could exist even when I had nothing to offer. She let go and I knew that it was something that I would never find here, not in the thousands of half-lives I could live in the hands of Holy Harmonia. She offered her hand to me._

 _I placed my grubby fingers in her pale, slender ones. At the time, I didn't even know Leknaat's name. At the time, that didn't matter in front of the twin faces of death and change._

 _I took her hand, but I did not find myself at Magician's Isle as I would have if this was a true memory and not a dream. Instead I was once more in the field where Temple Guard had attacked me and Sarah. No bodies littered the ground. No little girl was pressed to my breast. All was still. The field was clear as if it was midday, but neither the grass nor the sky had any color. The roaring cyclone my Wind Rune had created was no more, and now there was not even the faintest rustle of a distant breeze._

 _Confused, I stood up. I expected my clothes to be stiff with Harmonian blood, but my uniform was gone. I didn't even have my prison rags. I was naked and alone. I whipped around, desperate to see anyone else in spite of my nakedness. I needed to know what I had done, what my Wind Rune had done, to make the world so silent. I saw no one. My body still leaden with fatigue and the memory of stillness from when I had once wished for death, I dragged myself toward the horizon, towards where there should have been a house. No matter how long I walked, there was no change. There was no sun nor moon to rise above the monochrome landscape. The longer I walked, the more I knew I felt one thing. Terror. Sweat coursed down my face as I thought of the last time I had felt such nothingness, looking upon the throne of Harmonia's accursed High Priest._

" _Is anyone there!?" I called out, even though I hadn't seen as much as a fly. Even a shout into the vast empty landscape was faint._

" _Sarah! Riou! Tir!"_

 _Nothing._

" _Master Leknaat! Help me!"_

 _Again nothing, though she would have known I needed help before I even opened my mouth. I had walked to the top of a hill and could see Crystal Valley before me. Not a soul walked the streets._

" _Sasarai…"_

 _I wrapped my arms around my stomach, as if to hug the only other presence I knew I had here. My True Rune had betrayed me both an instant and an eternity ago, but I desperately feared being alone again. Truly alone, in a landscape devoid of life. Images from ten years ago once again crept into my brain, and I shivered though there was no sense of cold or heat here. As I stood at the hilltop, looking down upon a deserted land that knew no change, my Rune spoke to me. If it had a voice and words, it would have laughed coldly as it told me what I beheld. This silent land was the collective will of the True Runes. This colorless vision was the future. This was Destiny._

I opened my eyes to a real world, one just as grey as the one in my nightmares. Slowly life began to bleed into my vision, bringing with it the colors and sounds of late morning and a wash of relief. Something glittered in between the floorboards in the light as if the room was scattered with tiny jewels. Gauzy curtains fluttered with a warm breeze entering from an open window, bringing with it the smell of a rose garden and sounds of children playing outside. I strained to hear if one of them might be Sarah to no avail.

Crisp linen sheets rustled against my bare skin as I tried pulling myself up to a sitting position. I managed, though the effort caused hot sweat from exertion to mingle with the cold sweat of my nightmare. The sheets fell from my chest and into my lap and I suddenly realized that I was completely naked under the bedclothes. The Temple Guard uniform I had was nowhere in sight. I was glad to be free of it, except that now there was no hiding myself from Harmonia.

I puffed as I leaned back against the stack of fat pillows at the head of the bed. I was somewhere strange, a room that looked like a nostalgic picture of Highland. That seemed impossible. We were well over a week away from the border. Glad as I was that I was not imprisoned in Crystal Palace, I still did not know who kept me, if they were truly friendly, or where Sarah had gone to. If I was still this drained by my Rune, I would have to crawl to find her. I would crawl to find her, as soon as I could catch my breath.

I did not get that chance. I heard footsteps outside the bedroom door, soft, light, and stately. The door opened silently on well-oiled hinges and a young woman backed in, pushing the door open with her shoulder blade while she carried a tray with a blue and white porcelain bowl of water and rolls of clean white towels.

I pressed myself back into the pillows, hoping they might swallow me up. My cheeks felt warm and my throat had closed off at the first glance. Her black hair came down to her waist, and the full skirts of her red dress made her slender frame seem even more delicate. When she turned towards me, I saw a round face and a forehead adorned with a circlet. Her lips parted a little in shock when she saw me.

"You're awake! Has it been long?"

"No." I said, instinctively clipping my responses short.

If she took offense at my surliness, she didn't show it. The woman set her tray down on the nightstand and sat next to me on a stool pulled away from the dressing table. She studied me expectantly. I took in her perfume while I waited for her to continue. It was something that reminded me of warm brandy, with spice and mature fruit mellowing together to take the edge off my anxiety. The smell was too mature for her years, but just right for her bearing.

"Your name is Luc, right?" she asked.

"Who says?"

"My daughter."

I stared. She seemed too young to have a child old enough to speak and did not look like anyone I knew.

"Her name is Pilika."

That made no sense. Pilika's parents were massacred. I tried propping myself further upright against the pillows, seeking some position of strength in my utter confusion. Deep unease settled over me as I realized Pilika may have seen the remains of the Wind Rune's handiwork. She would hate me for it, I knew. The trauma of war had robbed her of speech once. I imagined both Pilika and Sarah pronouncing my name at the scene of the crime. I could hear their soft, accusatory voices, disappointed and disgusted with me and what I done.

"There was a girl with me." I stated.

"Sarah, right? She's in the garden with Pilika. It was almost impossible to peel her away from your side. If it wasn't for her, I don't think we would have found you."

"What happened?"

"Will you tell me your side of things?" she countered, smiling sweetly. That was one of the last things I wanted to do. Still, I needed her trust and was in no position to bargain.

"As much as I can." I relented.

"Two nights ago, there was a sudden squall. It was so strong it shattered all our windows before dying away. When I went out with our maidservant to make sure nothing else was damaged, I could hear Sarah crying."

The woman's face grew pale as she remembered something she wished she could forget before she continued, "When we found her she was exhausted from using so much of her magic trying to revive you. It took a long time to convince her that we weren't going to take either of you back to Crystal Palace, and even after that she refused to talk to me.

"We carried you back. Pilika recognized you as soon as she saw you. After that? I had you both cleaned up and waited for you to wake. Pilika's very happy to have a playmate her own age. I don't know how she and Sarah don't talk each others' ears off now that Sarah's warmed up.

"Now, your turn, Luc. What were you doing in that field? How did you two alone survive?"

I shifted uneasily, searching for a place to beginning my story.

"It was me. I did it." I lied immediately. I was afraid of scaring her if I blamed my Rune alone and causing her to turn us out at best or in to the authorities at worst. I swore to myself that this would be the only real lie I would tell her. "Sarah was being held captive in Crystal Valley. I wanted to rescue her, but the Temple Guard came after us. You can guess the rest."

When I said it like that, it seemed so easy and noble. I braced myself for some unearned compliment, but the woman's next, soft words caught me by surprise.

"You have a powerful rune, don't you? I can feel it." She said, and seeing my pained expression added, "Don't worry, I won't inform Harmonia. It just reminds me of my husband, like he's here and not off travelling with his friends."

"What's his name?"

I was glad to hear that she was otherwise attached. It softened the sting of another chance of a relationship I had to squander.

"Jowy Atreides. Jowy Blight."

I finally had the missing thread that tied everything together. I pulled together each piece and understood at last the mystery of why Pilika was here, where I might be, and almost more importantly, who my rescuer was.

"Then that must mean you are Jillia Blight, Queen of Highland. We were all told you were dead."

"Highland's Queen is. As is the Blight family name. We're Harmonians now. Here, I shouldn't trouble you more about the past. I'll go tell Sarah and Pilika you are awake- I'm sure that is far more important than the sponge bath I was going to give you."

Jillia smiled cryptically and left before I could say another word. I eyed the tray with its cooling bowl of water and neatly rolled towels, wondering if I should have slept just a little bit longer. The memory of her smile and her voice lingered in my mind. Somewhere there was a world where her ignorant, innocent asides were actually something more, a world where I was not so pathetic.

I sat in bed, waiting for Jillia's return and Sarah, hugging my knees close to my chest and listening to the summer breeze stirring the curtains. Of course it had to be like this. I alone would be backwards enough to need to be rescued by a princess. No, not a princess, a queen, which made it little better.

My thoughts turned to Jowy. From the sound of it, he would not be returning to Jillia and Pilika for a while. But he would return, and they would be waiting for him. Despite all he had done during the Dunan Unification War, they would be waiting for him. Once I empathized with a Jowy I had never met and only heard of. He was another burdened by an unhappy True Rune, driven to isolation and removed from his closest friend less by choice than by destiny. Then I abhorred him for the vileness of the acts he did in the name of Highland. Now I envied the Jowy I imagined from the stories told of him. For all he had done, he was still able to find love and forgiveness. There was a greatness in him, and a reasoning I did not yet know.

As I waited and thought, the color began to once more drain from the world without my willing it. I could hear less and less the sounds of summer. I realized with every advancing shade of grey that it was no mere dream I had. Two nights ago the balance had tipped, and every day forward would be a fight with the Wind Rune having the upper hand. I was breaking but I was not yet broken. It could be months or years left, but it would not be decades. One day I would finally snap. I would not care for Sarah when there was nothing left in my body but the True Wind Rune. At best, it would never love her.

The irony hit me like a boxer's punch to the jaw. My head pounded. The thought tasted like blood in my mouth- sour, salty, and bitter. If I had not been selfish, if I had not been kind, if I had not bent myself like a wire into a lockpick so I could free Sarah, this never would have happened. Her loneliness would be worse than my own when that day came. I could not expect Master Leknaat show any tenderness to Sarah when I was gone. Sarah was my choice, not Leknaat's. All Sarah was set on choosing was me and doom. I grit my teeth. The die was not yet cast.

"Luc! Luc!" Sarah burst into the bedroom and flung herself on top of me. "You're back!"

"I am." I squirmed. She was smiling more brightly than ever, with her fair skin reddened from the sun and her hands and clothes smudged green with grass stains. "You look like you're having a lot of fun."

"Miss Jillia wouldn't let me stay with you."

"Of course. It'd be boring. You're having much more fun with Pilika, aren't you?"

At the sound of her name, Pilika poked her head from behind the doorframe. Her expression was unreadably blank. There was no reason for me to really mean anything to her when Jillia had brought me in- I was just an acquaintance to recognize. Now I was an interruption to her games. Whatever I meant to Pilika, seeing her again made me glad. She'd changed a lot over three years. A few more and the frightened little village girl I had known would be completely swallowed up by an elegant pearl of a young lady. Sarah caught on that my attention was not wholly on her. She looked backwards over her shoulder to see Pilika.

"Uh-huh." Sarah said noncommittally before turning back to me, "But I missed you."

"I could hear you playing outside. Maybe you should get back to your game."

"Is something wrong?" Sarah asked. Her arms were still wrapped around my neck and her pale blue eyes narrowed with concern.

"No, nothing. I'm just a little tired."

"You're sure?"

"I didn't scare you with my magic back there, did I?" I whispered, so soft that Pilika would not be able to hear.

Sarah shook her head.

"You were crying." I pointed out, remembering her heaving, hiccupping sobs as I lost control of my Rune.

"I was scared," Sarah said reproachfully, "But you were protecting me."

"Still, it shouldn't have happened."

I found myself squeezing Sarah tight against me. To protect her, I didn't want to let her go. To protect her, I had to let her go.

"Will you sit next to me at dinner tonight?" she asked.

"I'll try. If I'm not too tired, and if I can find some clothes to wear."

Sarah set her hands on my shoulders and murmured a spell. The flowing rune on her forehead lit up, bathing me with a sense of calm. It was a strong spell, but I couldn't bring myself to tell Sarah that the fatigue I felt was not something that rune magic could heal.

"Now you're better." Sarah said matter-of-factly.

"I suppose I am. Can you get Jillia for me? Keep Pilika company and I promise I will sit next to you tonight."

Sarah smiled. It was all the blessing she needed to let me go and rush out to meet with Pilika before both of them raced downstairs. I worried I may have promised too much.

Jillia arrived before I had a chance to slip into either my own thoughts or the grey world that lurked in my Rune's memories. She carried with her a bundle. It wasn't the blue and white wool I loathed but expected.

"Not the uniform I came in?" I asked.

Jillia lay the clothes on my bed, three layers of black, brown, and green. "Did you want those? I thought it would be better if you did not look like Temple Guard…"

"No, these are fine."

"… and they wouldn't fit as well either—"

"They're fine, Jillia. Really. You didn't need to go through the effort."

"Are you sure you are well enough for dinner?" Jillia said, her tone suddenly serious, "Sarah said…"

"I'll make it. I can't disappoint, can I?"

"No, I don't think you can." Jillia smiled, "Do you need your privacy? Or help…?"

The skin on the back of my neck prickled at the idea of needing help to get dressed. "It's a few hours until dinner, isn't it? I can pull myself together by then."

Jillia had no answer for me as she left. I swung my legs over the edge of the bed as soon as the door closed and reached for the towels and bowl of water at my bedside. Washing was a chore, but less so than when I had first tried to sit up. I was recovering fast, though I still found myself needing to catch my breath. Dressing was yet worse. One leg at a time, I pulled on black trousers. I leaned back for rest after pulling on the brown tunic Jillia gave me. They fit surprisingly well. The clothes couldn't have belonged to Jowy. He was a fighter, broad-shouldered and strong. Wherever they came from, these clothes might as well have been made for me. The easy familiarity made me feel stronger than I was.

I dragged myself into a long green coat, then pushed myself off the bed and to my feet. The sun was setting. I struggled for a sense of balance as I stood up for the first time in over two days. My legs felt like jelly, as if neither muscles nor joints remembered their purpose. Slowly I guided myself out of the room, propping my weight on any available surface.

I staggered downstairs, putting my full weight into each stiff-legged step and leaning back and against the bannister, praying every time I lurched forward that if my legs would give way, it would pitch me embarrassingly backwards instead of dangerously forward onto my face. I followed the sound of clinking porcelain and silverware being set on the table. By the time I reached the dining room, I thought I would collapse as soon as I sat down.

Dinner passed in a blur. I was ravenous, but the sensation of food in my mouth was too rich to bear. I yearned to do more than listen, but too many words I only heard and could not focus enough to actually understand. My head cleared halfway through the main course, in time to take my fill of unbuttered bread and chicken scraped free of sauce before giving the ice cream I couldn't finish to Sarah.

"I'd like to leave tomorrow morning." I announced to Jillia after Pilika left the room with Sarah reluctantly in tow.

"So soon? Why won't you stay? Jowy won't come back until late fall. We will be more than happy to host you through his return. You can see Riou and Nanami again."

Her offer tempted me sorely. The thought of Leknaat held me back. I had promised I would return to my apprenticeship with her. I shook my head.

"That would invite trouble. You said I had a powerful rune. You are right. Perhaps you know already. This is a True Rune. The Wind Rune. Harmonia would give you a great reward if you would turn me in- it has already escaped them once before. Or you might feel safer even without the reward, because I can't guarantee your safety if the Rune's power is released again like it was two nights ago. How many people died then when it escaped me? When I tried to protect Sarah? It will be worse next time."

Truths I had hoped to keep secret left my mouth and I wished I could recall them. The lies told myself I would not tell could remain. I had no idea if it would be really be worse, or if Harmonia would find me in one year or one hundred. I only needed to make the threat.

Jillia looked like she would have laughed if I wasn't so deadly serious, "I couldn't do that to a friend of Jowy's."

"I don't even know him!" I retorted.

"Nonsense. Listen to me: If you are a friend of Pilika, then you are a friend of Jowy. And if what you say is true, then I would have to forgive you as I forgave my husband. I won't turn you in, I already said so."

"Then you know I have to leave. Harmonia will find the Rune one day if I remain. But could Sarah stay? Can you promise to keep her safe?"

"But she's so close to you."

"I know. It's just not good for her to follow me. My master and I—it's just better for her to be able to be with people her own age."

"What does Sarah have to say about it?"

"I don't know."

I didn't know, but I could guess. I hung my head for a moment before pushing myself to my feet. Holding briefly onto the chair back for balance, I turned aside to avoid Jillia's worried gaze and muttered my thanks before dragging myself back up the stairs one leaden step at a time. I threw myself down on top of the bed, ready to try and sleep without bothering to remove the clothes I had tried so hard to put on. Instead of finding rest, I sweltered in the warm night until I heard the shuffle of small footsteps outside my room. The door opened and I squinted in the light that flooded in from the hallway, able to make out a small shadow.

"Luc?" Sarah asked, "I can't sleep."

"You want me to tell you another story, huh?"

"Yeah." Sarah said, padding softly to my bedside. "Jillia tells boring stories."

I pulled myself back up to sitting and shifted aside to make room for Sarah to sit next to me. Unlike me, Sarah was dressed for bed. Jillia had given her a nightgown to borrow, something with ribbons and lace on its gathered sleeves.

"Well, in that case…" I took in a deep breath. "Once upon a time, there was a famous Hero. For many years, he lived alone, and grew lonelier and lonelier. Until one day, he decided he would forge himself two sons with the power of the True Runes. They would be his Sword and his Shield, and they would bring him all the other True Runes, so the Hero would no longer be lonely."

"You're telling the story wrong." Sarah interrupted.

"This is my story. It's different." I snapped, "His two sons were equally handsome on the outside. But one brother, Sword, was broken on the inside. The Hero knew this and hid the boy away in a little box until he could be reforged into something that would please him. And that would have happened, except a powerful sorceress found Sword. He was dulled and tarnished but she whispered a promise to him: If he became her blade, and not the Hero's, she would grant him the chance to cut his own destiny.

"Sword accepted. For ten years, he knew nothing of the world outside the whetstone and the scabbard. Then the sorceress set him free for battle. Love, sorrow, knowledge, fear, forgiveness, trust, pain, joy... these were the hammer blows that strengthened him despite his flaw. But no sooner was the battle over, she returned him to his scabbard. Two years passed, and once more a battle raged. Once more she set her sword loose on the world, and he grew sharper yet.

"He grew sharper, yet battle had hammered into him a second edge that threatened to cut friend and foe. It was an edge patterned with bitterness, for all he could keep with him, alone in the sorceress' hands, was knowledge and sorrow and fear and pain. He had to leave love and trust and joy behind.

"One day, that sword may be sharp enough to cut through creation. When that day comes, he will shatter- who knows if either the Hero or his brother Shield will face him. Until then, Sword stays hidden away by the sorceress, alone in his scabbard, waiting for her promise to come true."

"What was the boy's name? Sword?" Sarah asked.

I hadn't forgotten that detail. I did not want to say it. "Luc. That boy was me. If you go home with me, you'll be lonely like I am. You should stay with Jillia and Pilika. You'll be happier."

"You don't love me anymore?"

I felt my cheeks pinch at the suggestion. Where had she even gotten the idea that I cared that much for her to begin with? "Sarah, I love you more than anyone else in the entire world." I said, hugging her close, "That's way I want to leave you. I love you enough to know you won't be happy with me, not for long, not forever. I love you enough to let you go. You might understand when you're older."

"I'm staying with you, Luc." Sarah answered fiercely

A sliver of me wished I was an even worse person than I was. The type of person who could shove Sarah, or hit her, or do something else so drastic that in a moment that she would hate and fear me forever. I wished I was the type of person who could leave in the night without saying goodbye, abandoning Sarah to tears of betrayal. I could not do either. I turned soft and formless in Sarah's insistent embrace. I had wanted to give her a choice, one that meant more than what Leknaat had offered long ago. I had given her every other option, and she wanted nothing more than me. I could not go against her.

"I'll tell Jillia the bad news, then." I said, stroking her soft hair and thinking of everything that Sarah was too happy to give up, "And you better go to sleep now. We're leaving very early in the morning."

"Can I stay with you tonight?"

"You're not going to let me say 'no' to that either, will you? Go ahead." I told Sarah, kissing her on the forehead before drawing the covers over her shoulders.

The next morning we started our journey well before dawn. Jillia's carriage would take us as far as Sajah at the southern border.

"You will come back to visit us, won't you?" Jillia asked as I entered the carriage.

"I can't promise that." I said. I wished I could.

And then we left. They were happy weeks of travel for me and Sarah. Every day was one where I regained my former strength and she learned a little more of the world outside Harmonia. In truth, I lingered more and more often as we drew closer to Toran and I could feel yet more able to teleport us to my familiar home and Sarah's new one.

Leknaat was already waiting for us when we appeared on the beach of Magician's Isle. I bowed deeply to her, marking my greeting, my respect, and my apologies all at once. Sarah mimicked me but was soon distracted by the waves breaking on shore. She must have never seen the sea before. I turned toward her, kneeling so I would be on her level.

"You can play in the water. Just don't go deeper than your knees." I told her, "I need to talk with Master Leknaat."

Sarah gave me a peck on the cheek and a smile before she left to soak the hem of her dress in sea spray. I touched the spot briefly. Sarah had never kissed me before. She really did care.

I turned back to Leknaat, steeling myself for a stern dressing down. My Master's expression was supremely impassive, with no hint of smile nor frown.

"I did not give you permission to bring anyone back with you." She said. Her voice had an edge to it, as if I had broken something irreplaceable.

"You never said I couldn't either."

"She will be your apprentice alone. Do not expect your own work to become any lighter."

"I never did. I promise, Master Leknaat, I will take care of Sarah."

I would take more care of Sarah than Leknaat had for me. I was no hero, but I had created something that once neither of us had. It was Sarah's choice. And mine.


End file.
